A Fair Few Fics

Extremely Odd

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:03:54 GMT

For the first time in what seems like months, I finally have a chance to drop in and leave a note, and forgetting that lj was giving me so much trouble signing in that I finally created another account, I type in this user id without thinking and 'wala'. It lets me sign in. How extremely odd.

Just a little bit of an update for me:
The kids are doing great for teenagers who seem to believe that they are inherently more intelligent, more cunning, and more with-it than their mom. My youngest was recently baptized and firmly believes that (at twelve) he is a man! -- Despite the fact that he often can't be bothered with the responsibility of walking the one point three feet from his video game console to the trash can to throw away his chip and candy wrappers.

My eldest is perfect as usual. Her friends love her, her teachers love her, the world loves her, and I'm just totally oversensitive and jealous when I tell her that she may actually need to keep the three way calls and text messaging under control. We received an erroneous phone bill for over 10,000, and she didn't even blink but said that her brother uses the phone, too. It struck me totally ridiculous that she could actually believe that our bill could be so high then groused that I pester her to do her room so much that it forces her to let her brother use the phone.

As for myself, where I thought I'd have time two write, it turned out that I had just enough time in the day (and enough bills) to pick up three more jobs - none of them full time, with benefits, or other perks. So, I've been a bit out of it but the major rush at the college seems to have sagged a little bit and I've had a few minutes to pop onto the computer.

Thought I'd say hi, and that I really really really really miss everyone, and have a few pieces, primarily HP that I can post. But, I'm pretty certain that I'm going to post them to the new lj address and keep this for a personal note spot. If you're still interested in reading them, drop me a response and I'll pm you the new user id (and yes there is a reason that I'd prefer to do this, but can't discuss it at the moment.)

Hope everyone is doing stunningly.

Falling Stars, Part 16

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 17:50:19 GMT

Title: Falling Stars

Rating: PG, Angst

Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

Falling Stars, p. 16

Sighing as he brushed away a fine sheen of sweat from Jule’s brow, Severus smirked lightly – studying the satiated gleam in her eyes as she slid from her perch across his hips and dropped languidly to the bed. When her breathing finally settled enough that she could speak, her snarl sounded rather cute to him – coming, as it did, breathed out on a thoroughly satisfied yawn: “So glad you’re amused.”

Dropping a finger to her lower lip, he traced it musingly from outer edge to outer edge as he decided that he would need to begin shielding soon. She was progressing quickly in her occlumency and legillimency training to the point that she might soon be able to read his unguarded thoughts (and would undoubtedly hex him seven ways to Sunday for thinking that mannerisms were cute in any form, but especially the scowls and snarks that she shot him ever so confidently as though he were a first year to be so easily quailed and intimidated).

“Amused?” he finally answered when her eyes threatened to darken, “No, that is not precisely how I would described my state; although I am loath to admit that it could more accurately fall into the range of giddiness.”

Her disbelieving snort crooked his lips into a wry smile as she denied dryly, “Severus Snape does not do giddy…”

“Not on a habitual basis, to be certain,” he admitted with some amusement just before she cut him off with the second half of her response, “and I . Am . Not . Cute. So, erase that description from your thoughts this second.”

“Time to begin shielding, then?” Severus asked, impressed that his wife had progressed to that level, in the two days since their last session, without his guidance.

“Soon, perhaps.” She corrected softly as she explained, “But, for the moment, it was merely that you are wearing the same condescending smile that you wear when you watch Miranda and Brian playing.”

“Condescending?” he questioned with an arched eyebrow.

“When it is aimed at me, it certainly is…” She challenged as she leaned in and nipped his side sharply instead of kissing him as he had expected.

Lightly rubbing the painful bite as she laid back, rested her shoulder in the crook of his arm, and draped her head across his shoulder, Severus murmured, “Very well then, consider me chastised. Is there other syntax that you would prefer…as you’ve previously rejected adorable, impish, fawning, ethereal, and stunning?”

Studying him as she chuckled darkly, Jule shook her head and bit back the sharp comment that he knew had been resting on the tip of her tongue. While she would certainly never admit it, Severus suspected that she deeply enjoyed his frequent compliments, even the mismatched, teasing, and sharp ones – though she would often snort and dice them up with equally sharp comments of her own. Her slate irises glittered brightly in the hearth’s cast lights, and staring into to them, Severus was swept with a sense of deep relief that he could delay shielding even a bit longer.

Early in their relationship, it had taken Jule quite a long time to prove herself to Severus, but once she had, she quickly became the only other confidant that Severus kept – outside of the headmaster. Over time, even before their marriage, he had begun to share confidences with her that he had never even hinted at to his cherished mentor: chief among these were the difficulties of his childhood, his growing belief that he could never do enough to absolve himself of his deepest mistake, and once – just before Voldemort’s return was confirmed – after more than a few tumblers of firewhiskey, he had even grudgingly admitted to his growing respect for the boy-who-lived. Thankfully, Jule proved to be constant, honorable, and intelligent, as well as cunning, clever, and utterly Slytherin, which turned out to be rather a convenient circumstance. For while Severus could never be described as ‘chatty’ in any situation, he was far more inclined to talk after a good bedding. That reason, alone, made him quite pleased to realize that he had married both an intelligent woman and one whom he would not need to obliviate after every intimacy. Now, that they were finally able to be intimate again, he was rather discomforted at the prospect of diminishing their freshly rekindled intimacy. Nevertheless, their son would not be capable of communicating with her until she was well trained in the skill, and he refused to allow even his own cloying sentimentality to hinder either his wife’s training in the Slytherin subtleties of the art or his son’s progress in bonding with his new mother. Thinking of which…

“Did you perhaps notice that Brian spent four hours and eighteen minutes - exclusive of meal times and ablutions – outside of his cupboard without being given a chore?”

“That is an accomplishment.” Jule’s lips quirked into what he could only describe, discreetly to himself, as a doting smile – telling him that she had been quite aware of the fact but had no intention of spoiling his triumph over their son’s progress at fighting the long conditioned fear of venturing out from his cupboard: a cupboard that the child had somehow wished into existence shortly after waking from his transition. Severus, himself, was rather astonished at their son’s tenacity compounded as it was by his other circumstances. It was a wonder to him how he had grown so fond of the child so quickly, when he had expected to have difficulty in dealing with the child’s natural and inescapable incompetencies.

It had been his past experience that such imperfections were almost intolerable in his students, yet with Brian he was finding a patience that he had never been able to develop – even for Draco – as he watched the child battle not only his deeply ingrained fears and horrific memories of the Dursleys, but also his inabilities to interact with the external world. At times, he found himself almost regretting the harsh, perfectionistic manner that he had felt himself forced to project and sometimes wondered if he might have produced more students inclined to follow the coursework into a mastery if he had.

Even Slughorn had produced a good thirty some mastery students, where Severus had only produced three in the same approximate length of time. At the same time, however, he held a record that gave him some amount of self-satisfaction: in the entire history of Hogwart’s potions professors, dating back to Salazar Slytherin, Severus was the only Potion Master who could make the claim that they had never lost a student to an unintended or accidental potions ‘accident’, or otherwise. While there had been an intentional poisoning during his tenure, Severus had been able to develop an antidote within some hours that saved the unfortunate ravenclaw’s life. The seventh year was badly disabled, and after the reason had been discovered behind the unprecedented attack from a hufflepuff boy, later killed himself to avoid a stint in Azkhaban for raping the hufflepuff’s sister. It was an unpleasant matter, but Severus was nevertheless satisfied that his record could still be used to assert that his perfectionistic attitude had saved a handful of lives – especially during the Longbottom era as he liked to think of it.

Shaking his head in amusement at his ingrained tendency for all thoughts to lead back to Hogwarts, Severus settled back against the head board until he was certain that Jule had no intention of pursuing another round of intimacy then gave into the satisfying lethargy and comfortable familiarity that still felt so very alien and allowed himself to doze off. For the first time in his recent memory, he was content in the knowledge that there was absolutely no urgent need for him to get up and prowl the halls in search of wayward students or unexpected threats. His eyes were slowly drifting out of focus when he heard Jule’s light snore and tucked its existence away for use at a later date.

Severus and Jule were still wrapped in each other’s arms and leisurely enjoying the warmth of each other’s body when the rumpled duvet was gently levitated over them, pulled up to their necks, and fastidiously tucked in around their shoulders, causing them to sit up in shock and negate the effort to offer them discreet coverage.

“I thought that was you.” “That wasn’t you.” Their simultaneous comments echoed each other.

“No.” “No.” They matched again with looks of irritated surprise until a small grey figure slowly faded into being at the foot of the bed with its eyes cast studiously to the floor.

“Masters’s and Madams’s Snape, Master Brian’s sleep is not good. He not crying but Elly is thinking that he is wanting to.”

“Thank you, Elly.” Snape answered with forced calm before h turned and planted a soft kiss on Jule’s forehead. Elly was among a number of the house elves saved from near suicide attempts after their death eater owners had been killed in the final battle, and Snape found that he was forced to take the mildest tones he could accommodate to prevent the elf from inflicting astonishingly cruel punishments on herself. The first week of her service had driven him nearly to distraction until he realized that the elf was repaying his kindness with an utter devotion to the family that he had never witnessed in a houseelf before – outside of Dobby. But, Dobby was, in his opinion, a most unusual case – and perhaps somewhat unbalanced compared to his kin who seemed capable of recognizing that avtions like sending a rogue bludger after a young quidditch player were in no way a sensible or feasible attempts to protect the child. The mere fact that Dobby had been the only one of his kind to actively battle in the final battle suggested that it was not the most sane of its breed.

“Sleep well,” he murmured and gently slid away from his wife, knowing that she would expect their son to likely keep him occupied for the remainder of the night.

Elly had retrieved his dressing robe and sleeping pants for Severus, so he quickly dressed and out the door, striding toward the stairway at the end of the hall when the diminutive elf spoke up again.

“Masters Snape, Sir. He is not being that way, Sir,”

“Where then?” Severus asked uneasily.

Brian found it incredibly difficult to adjust to new and unfamiliar locations – even within the manor: areas that Green man’s grove had and abundance of. More than once, their son’s nightmares had compelled the child to run panic-stricken through the house – fleeing the terrors of his other childhood – only to be frozen in fear on finding himself in a new and unfamiliar room. These events were not likely to stem soon as the family was still concentrating on helping Brian merely feel comfortable come out of his abuse-ingrained self-exile.

“Where did he run to this time?” Severus covered his anxiety in a sharply-asked question as he turned quickly scanning the hall for the feel of his son’s magic in the nearby rooms.

“No Master, Sir. Master Brian is not being running to anywhere. Master Brian, Sir, is being a strong wizard sir and wished his cupboard into his bedroom.”

Despite his urgency to reach his son, Severus stumbled to a sharp halt and stared at the elf in amazement.

“He. Wished. It? Are you certain?”

Elly nodded solemnly with a hint of an understanding smile. She had paid careful attention to her new Master and Mistress and knew that this was a much greater step forward than they had expected their son to make.

“Yes, Sir. And Master Snape, Sir.”

“Yes, Elly?”

“His door was open, Sir.”

Over the past month, after almost every nightmare, Severus had been required to spend close to an hour coaxing his son to open the door, followed by another twenty to coax the boy into allowing his father to pick him up, before Severus could bring him upstairs and spend the rest of the night in drawn out legillimency sessions – comforting the child as best as he could. For Brian to have taken the initiative to both move the cupboard to his room and open the door, was an accomplishment that Severus had not expected for months at the earliest with an understanding that it could likely even take years.

In his excitement, Severus broke into a run and almost tripped when Elly popped barely a foot ahead of him with frightened eyes and asked “Masters, Sir, should Elly silencio the hall, Sir? So, that Masters Brian is not being afraid when he hears your running?”

Stumbling to an embarrassed halt, Severus chuckled as he patted the nervous elf on the shoulder.

“Thank you for reminding me, Elly.”

“Master is most welcome, Sir.” Elly sighed, remembering again that her new family did not punish her in the same manner as her old. It was still very odd to her that they were having their daughter teach Elly to read and write – so that she could write ‘lines’ if she ever did something that needed punishment, but Elly enjoyed the books and liked being able to read them to the Master’s children without her magic. As if Master Snape had read her thoughts, just before he turned into his son’s room, her master glanced back over his shoulder and ordered: “Elly, by the way, I would like for you to start learning a new book with Miranda – Tom Thumb. It’s on the top of the new stack that my wife purchased yesterday.”

“Yes, Master Snape. Elly will begin immediately.”

“If you wish,” he answered with a knowing smile, “but in the morning would be fine, as well.”

With the only reward that he could think of giving her that she would accept– doled out, Severus turned his attention to his son, who was indeed sitting mostly hidden on the small cot in his relocated cabinet. Watching the boy rock back and forth, Severus marveled at the boy’s resilience. From the legillimency sessions, Severus had gained a better idea of the depth of the boy’s well justified terrors. If there were ever a muggle who justified the Death Eater’s pure-blood prejudices, it was Vernon Dursley. What the man had done to his nephew from the boy’s earliest memories was despicable, and Severus often wished that he could track the man down and make certain that his son was avenged. He knew that his family needed him to much to risk that and had only gone so far as to put out discreet feelers for the man’s whereabouts.

How his son had managed to survive that bloody muggle was almost as much of an amazement to him as how the boy had survived the final battle. Voldemort had been cruel and evil, but in many ways Dursley was equally as wicked: he was no less than a sadist whom had been given access to a helpless, orphaned infant and abused that access despite family ties and even muggle concepts of decency. Yet, Brian had somehow, not only survived the man, but had also retained his innocence in doing so. In their legillimency sessions, Brian had even begun to say, on his own initiative, that his uncle was bad not him.

To his even greater surprise, Brian had slipped down on the cot and seemed to be aware of his entrance. Casting a quick notice-me-not spell over himself to prevent their interaction from triggering his son’s sensory overload threshold, Severus carefully moved closer to the cupboard and dropped gently to his knees.

“Brian, this is amazing. You have done a very special bit of magic to have moved your cupboard up here and we’ll have to be certain to get you a treat in the morning.” Severus began - quick to stage Brian’s magic in terms of his approval to offset his son’s long experience of being punished by his relatives for minor magical events. “I’m pleased that you feel comfortable here. Do you think that you’re ready to move to your couch so we can talk?”

Brian rocked slowly back and forth not responding immediately, so Severus edged closer and curled his shoulders so that his son could see his face if he was trying to. Whether by training or due to the core burn, from Severus’s research it was most likely a combination, in any event, his son no longer met people’s eyes. Kanner’s syndrome was often accompanied by a child’s inability to recognize the face as key point of interaction, but Severus hoped to off set that as much as possible by making certain that his face was always within Brian’s field of vision.

“Brian?” his father asked quietly.

“no-me-nots.” Brian grunted softly.

“Yes, I have cast a notice-me-not spell.” Severus assured him, pleased that his son was attempting to hold a conversation through the ever-present mass of conflicting sensory information.

“no-me-nots.” Brian asked again in a blunt, grunted statement.

“No-Me-Nots!!!” He answered his son firmly. “No-Me-Nots!!!”

Scooting closer, Severus spread his arms as much as he could through the cupboard’s entry. Instead of waiting for his father to scoop him up as he usually did, though, Brian stood up - dropping his clasping and unclasping hands to hang by his side as he moved forward. Uncertain how to respond, Severus held his breath and tried to still himself completely as his son moved forward still clasping and unclasping his hands as he muttered, “accio… accio.” He realized that Brian might mean word similar to its magical meaning – to summon him, but he had no way of knowing if the child was pushing himself too far too fast, and he was afraid that adding any response to it could easily cause a setback.

When Brian was standing directly in front of him, the child did something astounding, given that he had never once tried – since first awaking in his de-aged form – to initiate any physical contact on his own. Without lifting his eyes to find Severus’s face, Brian lifted his tiny hands and laid them over his father’s cheeks covering streaks of proud tears that Severus had not even noticed shedding.

“f’wks” Brian pressed his hands into his father tears then pulled them back to his own face and pressed them against his cheeks.

“Fwks…” Severus puzzled quietly as his son confirmed – drawing the word out in his second pronouncement, “f—wks.”

“Fawkes? Phoenix tears? You’re comparing my tears to Fawkes?”

Severus’s heart came into his throat as Brian cupped his hand to his cheeks again then pressed them back on his cheeks over and over until Severus’s drying face warmed under his touch. He didn’t know what to make of it. Did Brian expect his tears to heal him? Or, was he saying that his father’s sympathy helped? Was he asking to be cured?

There was so many possible answers that Severus still had no idea how to respond until Brian stepped so close that their chests were almost touching, gingerly laid his head on his father’s shoulder, and grunted softly in command: ‘vio-sa.”

Laughing happily, Severus wrapped his arms around Brian and lifted his son- answering, “Leviosa it is then” as he allowed himself a careful hug before he carried Brian to the couch for their legillimency session.

Falling Stars, Part 15

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 16:01:08 GMT

Title: Falling Stars

Rating: PG, Angst

Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

Falling Stars, p. 16

Her disbelieving snort crooked his lips into a wry smile as she denied dryly, “Severus Snape does not do giddy…”

“Time to begin shielding, then?” Severus asked, impressed that his wife had progressed to that level, in the two days since their last session, without his guidance.

“Condescending?” he questioned with an arched eyebrow.

“When it is aimed at me, it certainly is…” She challenged as she leaned in and nipped his side sharply instead of kissing him as he had expected.

“Did you perhaps notice that Brian spent four hours and eighteen minutes - exclusive of meal times and ablutions – outside of his cupboard without being given a chore?”

“I thought that was you.” “That wasn’t you.” Their simultaneous comments echoed each other.

“No.” “No.” They matched again with looks of irritated surprise until a small grey figure slowly faded into being at the foot of the bed with its eyes cast studiously to the floor.

“Masters’s and Madams’s Snape, Master Brian’s sleep is not good. He not crying but Elly is thinking that he is wanting to.”

“Sleep well,” he murmured and gently slid away from his wife, knowing that she would expect their son to likely keep him occupied for the remainder of the night.

“Masters Snape, Sir. He is not being that way, Sir,”

“Where then?” Severus asked uneasily.

“Where did he run to this time?” Severus covered his anxiety in a sharply-asked question as he turned quickly scanning the hall for the feel of his son’s magic in the nearby rooms.

“No Master, Sir. Master Brian is not being running to anywhere. Master Brian, Sir, is being a strong wizard sir and wished his cupboard into his bedroom.”

Despite his urgency to reach his son, Severus stumbled to a sharp halt and stared at the elf in amazement.

“He. Wished. It? Are you certain?”

“Yes, Sir. And Master Snape, Sir.”

“Yes, Elly?”

“His door was open, Sir.”

Stumbling to an embarrassed halt, Severus chuckled as he patted the nervous elf on the shoulder.

“Thank you for reminding me, Elly.”

“Yes, Master Snape. Elly will begin immediately.”

“If you wish,” he answered with a knowing smile, “but in the morning would be fine, as well.”

With the only reward that he could think of giving her that she would accept– doled out, Severus turned his attention to his son, who was indeed sitting mostly hidden on the small cot in his relocated cabinet. Watching the boy rock back and forth, Severus marveled at the boy’s resilience. From the legillimency sessions, Severus had gained a better idea of the depth of the boy’s well justified terrors. If there were ever a muggle who justified the Death Eater’s pure-blood prejudices, it was Vernon Dursley. What the man had done to his nephew from the boy’s earliest memories was despicable, and Severus often wished that he could track the man down and make certain that his son was avenged. He knew that his family needed him too much to risk that and had only gone so far as to put out discreet feelers for the man’s whereabouts.

“Brian?” his father asked quietly.

“no-me-nots.” Brian grunted softly.

“Yes, I have cast a notice-me-not spell.” Severus assured him, pleased that his son was attempting to hold a conversation through the ever-present mass of conflicting sensory information.

“no-me-nots.” Brian asked again in a blunt, grunted statement.

“No-Me-Nots!!!” He answered his son firmly. “No-Me-Nots!!!”

Scooting closer, Severus spread his arms as much as he could through the cupboard’s entry. Instead of waiting for his father to scoop him up as he usually did, though, Brian stood up - dropping his clasping and unclasping hands to hang by his side as he moved forward. Uncertain how to respond, Severus held his breath and tried to still himself completely as his son moved forward still clasping and unclasping his hands as he muttered, “accio… accio.” He realized that Brian might mean the word similar to its magical meaning – to summon him, but he had no way of knowing if the child was pushing himself too far too fast, and he was afraid that adding any response to it could easily cause a setback.

“f’wks” Brian pressed his hands into his father tears then pulled them back to his own face and pressed them against his cheeks.

“Fwks…” Severus puzzled quietly as his son confirmed – drawing the word out in his second pronouncement, “f—wks.”

“Fawkes? Phoenix tears? You’re comparing my tears to Fawkes?”

Falling Stars, Part 14

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 15:43:49 GMT

Title: Falling Stars

Rating: PG, Angst

Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

Falling Stars, p. 14

Harry smiled gratefully, for the change of topic, and nodded:

“Yes, Sir, I was just wondering where’d I’d be placed.”

“Placed? Do you want to be placed?”

“No!” The boy answered sharply and immediately,

then more uncertainly, “But, I don’t want to be a burden, either.

I know you said you’d protect me, but this isn’t exactly

what you signed- on for.” (Part 11).

After a second glance to his wife, who was settled into a bed with their daughter, who was sniffling piteously – still shaken by her new brother’s burst of accidental magic, Severus turned back to the child and caught his chin in a careful but firm grip.

“Child, child, calm yourself!” Severus caught the child’s shoulders- tightening his grip as the child continued to shriek silently – his mouth extended in anguish and fear. He hesitated a second before shaking the child, but to no effect and finally gathered himself and incanted, “legillimens!”

Severus almost panicked as he found himself seeming to fall through the magically created link - unimpeded by even the natural resistance that he should have expected to find there. Reaching the end of the link between them, Severus was startled to find himself facing an ostensibly endless dark void as his mental image resolved.

This should not have been possible. The child was clearly present, else he could not have been screaming, but the landscape of his mind appeared barren – empty. Severus had never seen a mind stripped like this, not even in the minds of other Azkaban prisoners, who had been exposed to Dementors over long mind-numbing years.

Harry had implied earlier that, just before the last battle, he and Dumbledore had discovered that Harry was naturally occluding and had been “all along”, but certainly he could not have meant that he had been occluding from this early in his childhood – to this extent. Severus could not even imagine the depth of abuse that would cause such a level of occlusion. Surely the boy could not have survived anything that would have left him like this – something in the de-aging process must have caused this.

Repressing his own anxiety and unease before it fed the child’s mental state, Severus called back on his memories of an early legillimency training session with Albus – to a brief lesson in recovering individuals lost in their own minds. Albus had only been able to give him the bare theory – having little experience in the activity himself and no subject to locate, but the logic and theory had been refined with years of experience.

--- Four hours later, Severus wearily withdrew from his son’s mind to stare into his wife’s concerned gaze as he muttered: “Get him dressed, we will need to get him to a mind healer immediately.”

“Is that wise?” The ramifications of her question were quite clear as they stared down at their newly de-aged and transformed son. There was no way to be certain that the residual magics wear sealed and completed, though Severus through complex series of wand sweeps could only identify the lightest traces of dragon’s blood magics – as though the children had never been de-aged, but had instead been poisoned.

“Wise, perhaps not, but necessary. It was quite difficult to locate his mental embodiment; at this age, the child did not seem to have a concrete sense of self, and only knew himself as ‘boy’. When I attempted to address him by his first name, he failed to recognize it as his own name and hearing his surname sent even that frail embodiment into a shrieking panic. I can only speculate at the depth of trauma that he must overcome, but his language and communication abilities seem almost non-existent … and the core burn …” he shook his head unable to describe exactly what the core burn’s continuing sensory overload had done beyond nearly destroying the child’s mental landscape.

At least the de-aging process had negated the intense pain that Harry had suffered through earlier, and it did appear that the de-aging had also had the intended effect of slowing or putting a halt to the dragon’s core magic’s on going destruction of the child’s magical core. In fact, it appeared that the cores had blended – giving Severus hope that even as the child aged and lost his innocence, the purity of the dragon’s magical core would no longer be compelled to purge itself of the seemingly tainted human magical core. Nevertheless, Severus silently wondered if it would not have been kinder and more humane to have let the boy quickly succumb to the Kanner’s core burn rather than condemning him to a lifetime weighted down by limited mental capacities.

His wife had been dwelling on more practical thoughts, however, and quickly interrupted his thoughts as she detailed the invented background that they would tell the healers if anything were asked.

“There’s not very much that we’ll need to add to the truth. You sent us away to protect us from Voldemort and his cronies, I first had a daughter that I kept from you, fearing that you wouldn’t be able to keep from coming to see her. Later, six years ago, just before we went into your cousin’s care, you and I had a rendezvous – to say goodbye knowing we might never see each other again – and conceived twins, whose existence I also kept from you… for the same reason. Even at the Manor, I kept their existence a secret and only your cousin, myself, and a maid knew of them and that they had been sent separately into the care of different relatives few contacts in the magical world. Later, I brought our first daughter to live in hiding with me and later the twins. Somehow the secret was revealed and the death eaters attacked the manner, tortured Celeste and I, and took the twins with plans to take you captive in the battle and torture them in front of you. With assistance from certain unsavory elements, who we could certainly not be expected to reveal after their service of helping return our children to us, we located and retrieved them this morning. We have no idea what torture or experimentation has been done to them.”

Nodding at the practicality of her cover story, Severus considered the few remaining memories that the boy seemed to have and found that none of them would contradict her story.

“What do we say about Celeste’s absence? She was treated at St. Mungo’s?”

“That she came home with me, but fled in fear, after someone attempted to poison you and she at the tea room. We haven’t been able to locate her since.”

Nodding grimly, Severus returned to their children and cast sleeping charm on them both before gathering them up and heading toward the floo. Just as she threw the floo powder into the flames and carried their daughter into the green flame, another question came to mind.

“Their names?” He asked rapidly.

“Brian Albus and Poppy Eileen Snape.” She answered sweetly as the floo carried her away, knowing without question that he approved.

---

Healer Monogrove ushered the Snapes into her office, eyeing them with a grim calculating eye. She doubted that the potions professor remembered her, though she could remember him clearly. She might have received full healers training, if it were not for his abysmal grading.

She had never expected to see him in the course of her medical duties – as a child’s healer of the mind. More to the point, she had hoped to never see him again under any circumstances whatsoever. Before his role in the now famed ‘Order’ had been revealed -it had been inconceivable to think that the venomous older man could have found a companion without resorting to casting an ‘imperio’, much less someone so desperate for companionship that she would marry the unpleasant bastard and so feeble-minded that she would bear him children – at least not without a substantial financial settlement as part of the exchange.

Yet, that’s clearly what had happened, judging by the miniature copy of him – complete with the hawk-shaped nose, sallow skin, and dull eyes – resting in Mrs. Snape’s arms. Of course, when she saw the wife, it made more sense, Mrs. Snape could not even be charitably described as homely and probably had ten maybe twenty years on the professor. Having to go home to woman like that probably explained some of the professor’s bitterness. Within seconds, before the couple had even settled in their seats, Healer Monogrove had revised her mental story of the irritating professor’s background – casting him as a tragic figure forced into marrying an old spinster almost twice his age. In fact, an arranged marriage was about the only way that she could have even imagined him getting married.

“Healer Monogrove?” the professor broke her caught her attention as he quickly appraised her with a sneer.

“Professor Snape, what seems to be the problem?” the healer questioned in her haughtiest tone – enjoying the assumption he would need to assure her good graces instead of the reverse.

Intervening before her husband lost the temper he had been barely maintaining after hours of having to deal with arbitrary, meaningless bureaucracy, Juliette quickly told the healer their synthesized story as well as giving the healer a detailed report of what Severus found when he linked with the child’s mind.

“You legillimensed your son?!?” Monogrove asked Severus harshly.

“You would have no reason to remember this, having scored below the required outstanding needed to take any of the preparatory courses for healer’s training offered at Hogwarts, but both the Headmaster and I were certified Masters in Occlusion, Legillimency, and Physiomency. Of course, I would have ascertained my son’s status before bringing him.”

“That may be, but it’s quite frowned upon.”

“Many things are,” Severus challenged, “Yet, I have prepared a great number of potions for a number of healers who saw no difficulty in treating their own family’s ailments. By this time, I would have expected you to realize that many of your field’s idealized practices are dropped outside of the training setting.”

“Perhaps, but if you’ve already established his condition, I fail to see why you need my assistance.”

Severus’s temper flared at her callous response as he jousted back, “I’m inclined to wonder that myself… especially if you are incapable of recognizing that the three skills I specialize in are neither particularly suited towards treating mental traumas of children nor effective in diagnosing the distinctions between mental difficulties caused by abuse and those caused by torture.”

“There’s been abuse as well!” the healer practically shouted.

“In my son’s case, yes. We were not aware until they were recovered, but the ‘relatives’, into whose care he was sent, inflicted a variety of abuses on him that we cannot catalogue or pursue without his testimony.”

Forgetting for a moment, her dislike of the man, Monogrove studied their child intently, and nodded grimly to the Professor to sit the child up.

Kneeling so that she could stare into their son’s sleep-glazed eyes, the bulbous healer quickly scanned and cast the same diagnostic spells that Severus had cast earlier. When she finally stood, she sighed heavily and went to the door to call for a healer’s assistant.

Expecting her to announce that she would need to keep their son overnight for observation, both Severus and Juliette were shocked speechless when the abrasive healer took and entirely different tack: “Professor, Mrs. Snape, for the moment we will need to prepare a bed for your son in the accidental magic wing until we can make arrangements with a facility for incurable care. There is a fine facility in Ireland, but I would suggest investigating the facility in Cannes, France. When I visited on conference, they kept such cheery surroundings for the children and even let the children have their own coloring sets and similar.”

“What?!?” Severus and his wife demanded at once.

“There are other facilities, of course. If you feel those are too far away, there are others closer with acceptable reputations.”

“A two minute examination and you are ready to commit my child?” Severus shouted angrily as he shot to his feet.

“Professor Snape, surely with your skills and experience, you can recognize the hopelessness of your son’s situation. I am sorry to have to put it so bluntly, but your son is beyond treatment. The best you can hope for is a comfortable situation. We have a ward for incurable patients, but currently we don’t have any other incurable patients who are children, so it is not the most ideal environment for him.”

“You incompetent …” Severus started but was cut off by Juliette, who cautioned that negative comments wouldn’t help the situation.”

“I am sorry, but your son is a hopeless case. The best thing to do for everyone concerned is to bind his magic and make sure he’s in a well monitored facility to prevent him from injuring himself and others.”

“How ironic,” Severus sneered, “If I believe those were my exact words to Madam Pomfrey when she attempted to intervene and get you into the healer preparatory courses. While I generally enjoy being proven correct, in this instance, I can somehow find no satisfaction in the knowledge that you have fulfilled my expectations. Good day. Juliette.”

Ignoring the shock and indignant expression on the healer’s face, Severus turned on his heal and stalked out the door with Juliette close behind.

As they stalked down the corridor, Monogrove got over her shock and ran out behind them, shouting: “You can’t do this. The child’s incurable and insane. Taking him home will only endanger both of your children.”

Her words echoed through the corridor but fell on death ears as the Snape family disappeared as soon as they reached the apparition point.

Falling Stars, Part 13

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 04:34:03 GMT

Title: Falling Stars

Rating: PG, Angst

Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

from Falling Stars, Part 12

Unlike his daughter, Severus’s son had almost gaunt features that further

accentuated the addition of Severus’s easily recognizable lips and nose –

right down to the thick bump of cartilage at the ridge of his nose.

The tell-tale bump, in itself, was proof of his wife’s theory.

Rather than adopting the natural structure of his new father’s nose,

as his daughter had, the boy had apparently wished his restructured nose

to include the thick bump that Severus’s uncle had put there when he broke

the then fourteen year-old’s nose and refused to heal it.

Falling Stars, Part 13

While Juliette went to wake and dress their daughter, Severus poured his young associate another tea and waited for the young man to broach whatever subject he had been mulling over nervously. When it seemed that the young man would be unable to marshal his nerves, Severus finally spoke.

“Neville, you might prevent at least some bruising if you would cease gnawing at your lower lip and simply state whatever it is that has been troubling you. If it would be of any assistance, I can offer to restrain from casting any permanently damaging hexes for a period of … say… ten minutes.”

“Haa-hh,” the younger professor barked appreciatively. “Never one to mince words are you? Chop, shred, dice, and crush…but, never mince. Very well, to be blunt, I would like to give Harry his birthday gift, but due to the circumstances, it’s something that I will need to ask that you maintain and hold in trust for him until.”

“Indeed and what is the nature of this gift that you cannot transfer it to him immediately? A broom? A wand? I can think of very little in the wizarding world that your nature would find appealing that a child could not enjoy.”

Severus’s had rarely regretted being burdened with a harsh nature. In truth, he was rather certain that if he had been a single trace softer, he would not have survived his harsh up-bringing, much less his years of service to the order. Nevertheless, as he watched the solemn young man slip a charmed ribbon off from around the scroll that had softly slapped in his hand and quietly whisper a charm to end the birthday theme it had begun to play, he might have otherwise wished that he had the innate ability to provide comfort to the boy. After scanning the scroll, Neville slipped a page of it out and dropped it into his pocket before passing it to Severus.

“Under the circumstances, I don’t think he would object to having you read this. Be careful and keep the blank parchment though until you’ve read through my letter entirely. I suspect you might have a particular appreciation for it if you think back to our third year; Harry had something very like it that perplexed you. The phrase to open it is ‘second childhood’. It’s not quite as extensive as the other, but has other some features that the first didn’t.”

The young man paused reminiscently - apparently remembering other times that they had used the strange parchment that Severus remembered quite well- then shook his head to draw himself out of his memories, and continued, “It would probably be wiser for me to say my goodbyes now, before he wakes up. I don’t want to confuse or upset him. If you ever need anything, please don’t hesitate to owl, or – if it’s an emergency – hold his bracelet and think my name. Mine will warm in response and I’ll trigger the portkey to it as soon as can drop whatever I’m doing at that time. But, it would be appreciated if you could make sure you’re in an open area that I can portkey through to without causing any destruction.”

Hearing the finality in Neville’s voice, Severus frowned.

“Mr. Longbottom, you do realize, do you not, that your parting… is not permanent. The boy, Harry, in lieu of his as yet un-chosen name, though I suspect my wife has some suggestions regarding that…” he trailed off musing as he remembered a significant glance that his wife had given him when they had discussed the child’s name, then set the question aside and continued, “In any event, Harry cares deeply for you.”

“Professor,” Neville denied with soft vehemence, “he’s a child.”

“From my perspective, Professor Longbottom, so are you.” Severus paused – suppressing a smile as he anticipated the surprise that he hoped his next comment would draw as he finished, “And yet, I have known other professors, who were wiser and older than you are now, who discovered that - given the extended lives that wizards enjoy - a ten year difference in ages is often irrelevant once the younger wizard reaches maturity. I suspect this will be particularly true for Harry as the aging process releases the memories of … his previous life. Indeed, perhaps the intervening years might give you the opportunity to advance your own experiences so that when he does reach maturity the two of you will be more closely matched.”

As he had expected, once his comment sank in, the young man nearly choked on his tea. Whether he was more surprised to be receiving encouragement from self-acknowledged dour and dismal pessimistic professor or to hear that his worst critic was willing to allow Neville to court his child, Severus couldn’t be certain – but the effect was certainly salutary enough to make up for being the frequent target of jokes at Hogwart’s yearly budget meetings where he had inevitably endured the headmaster’s question of why he needed yet more replacement cauldrons for the students.

Longbottom nodded thoughtfully and studied the bottom of his cup for several seconds before he stood and turned to leave, but as he left the table, Neville paused to turn back and look at Severus with a painfully frank and open gaze. The unreserved honesty that Severus read there was startling and for the briefest moment, Severus had a glimpse of what he thought Potter might have seen in the awkward young man.

When his former student spoke that awkwardness had been replaced with solemn dignity: “Then, Sir, I will remind you of my offer for any assistance and leave you to your wife and children. As you so aptly point out, the man that I have known and loved, is – for the moment- years away. I will look forward to a visit as soon as you feel it would be appropriate.”

Before Severus could make any response, Longbottom turned swiftly and took the quick half-apparation step – disappearing with a soft flutter of breeze, as the surrounding air swept inward to fill his sudden absence. Shaking his head, Severus quickly scanned the scroll. thumbed through it, then scanned the letter of explanation again as he realized that it contained several deeds to the manor, cottages, nurseries, and areas around Green Man’s Grove – which in itself was quite a big estate. Also, if he was reading it correctly, the blank scroll was a charmed map of Green Man’s Grove.

“Second childhood,” Severus murmured experimentally, then muttered a surprised oath when the likeness of a verdant green ivy vine sprouted from one edge and scrolled across the top of the parchment – seeming to grow leaves as it thickened and curled in on itself when it reached the parchment’s other edge. As it did, ornate glittering gold letters moved across the vines, spelling out: Messirs Moony, Gred, Forge, and Ivy proudly welcome you to Green Man’s Grove and sincerely hope that you find it a place worthy of dropping the weight of the world from your shoulders and enjoying a second childhood.

Pausing for a moment, Severus shook his head in amusement wondering from the tone of the message if he were standing in a manor or an amusement park; certainly, Potter had earned a respite, and the initiators of the map – if he correctly interpreted their pseudonyms – were more than likely to try and make up for the childhood that the boy-who-lived had missed out on. As soon as he came to that conclusion, the words scrawled across the ivy blinked out of existence and were replaced by a mild challenge: To ensure that you are a rightful possessor of this excellently charmed item, you are asked to please answer the following questions:

No sooner than he had finished reading the line, it blinked out and was replaced by an analogy.

The moon is to moony as dementors are to __________.

Each of the five ivy leaves glowed brightly in turn as gold letters appeared, spelling out possible answers.

Ickle ronniekins

Ivy

Lightening

Wittle Seeker

Songbird

Smiling at the well chosen comparison, Severus considered the analogy carefully making certain he understood it before answering. Given its authors, a false answer could easily have explosive consequences.

It seemed straightforward enough, however. From his long exposure to the golden trio then the defense association, Severus easily recognized the potential answers as the group’s pseudonyms. Ickle Ronniekins was, or had been, the late Ronald Weasley. Ivy was, not surprisingly, Longbottom. Lightening, also no surprise, referred to Harry. By elimination, Ginevra Weasley would have undoubtedly have been the ‘Wittle Seeker’ combining her brother’s references to her as their ‘wee wittle sissy’ and her role as succeeding Potter as the Gryffindor Seeker. Songbird, would have been the one to confuse him, being possibly Granger or Lovegood, if he had not earlier heard Miss Granger singing the prophecy.

The second aspect was slightly more complex, though he felt that he still had enough information to feel confident of his interpretation; the moon to moony could refer to several things including a forced transformation, but as the boy’s godmut wasn’t included in the list, the next option – a deep seated fear- was more probable as both clues were Lupin’s and Harry’s boggart forms.

“Lightening,” he responded with certainty and was rewarded with a flare of golden light followed by a dance of new letters across the ivy.”

A sour bat’s glare can truly scare, but a word to the wise and enlightened – it’s of the old coot’s _________ _________ that you should truly be frightened.

As the answers flickered onto each leaf:

amiable hoot

grumpy growl

impish twinkle

impertinent toot

Severus chuckled appreciatively at their audacity and humor. While general familiarity with the group might have allowed someone to recognize that the phrase ‘old coot’ referred to Dumbledore, the rhyme scheme and deceptively simple phrasing pointed to the incorrect answer: amiable hoot. Presumably, the map’s authors felt, Severus had to agree, that only closer knowledge of the venerable wizard’s personal tendencies and physical tells would have hinted at the correct answer: that the meddlesome headmaster’s mischief was almost always accompanied by madly twinkling eyes.

Before he could even finish saying ‘impish twinkle’, leaves holding each of the potential answers seemed to curl in on themselves then uncurled to flash mischievously sparkling eyes glittering in gold ink that blinked once, twice, and then out of existence as more gold letters scrolled across the vine. As he read the last question, his mouth –quite uncharacteristically – dropped open with shock.

His godson was key to the last puzzle:

For Cobra, it was heartstring and pansy, that first worked magic pure and sweet, but Lightening found only phoenix and _______ could quicken his heartbeat.

This time, instead of scrolling down each leaf, the optional answers were flown across the page by tiny, poignantly accurate sketches of Harry’s friends that swept around the edge on broom back before sweeping forward to seemingly hang delicate drawings of plant materials in the center of the map before returning to circle the edge of the parchment in acrobatic sweeps that nearly distracted him from the question at hand.

A tiny Sirius darted across the parchment leaving a trail dogwood blossoms behind him.

Following him, a red-inked Ginevra Weasley swept across the field to leave a wreath of ginger blossoms.

Cedric Diggory zipped across after her – diving through the wreath she’d placed to set an arch of hickory branches at either side.

Finally a miniature sketch of Neville wobbled into the center of the screen trailing a garland of ivy.

Reading over the puzzle, Severus stifled another round of shock as he realized that his godson had actually revealed his wand’s core: dragon’s heartstring. His throat tightened with sad relief at the thought that the boy had obviously felt that he’d found at least some measure of friendship and acceptance before he was murdered; he would not have otherwise revealed his wand’s core… one of the private details of a wizards life that not infrequently only a spouse or blood-bond might know. Indeed, it was one of the first secrets that wizarding society considered perfectly acceptable for young wizards and witches to withhold from their parents. In fact, Severus was almost certain that Draco had told neither Lucius nor Narcissa the composition of his wand. Lingering over a softly pained memory of Draco’s first moments at Hogwarts - after being sorted into Slytherin with a smile more than a wand’s length wide – running into his quarters and brandishing his new wand as he challenged “You’ll never guess – you’ll never guess - …” Severus could almost hear the boy’s melodic singsong chant.

Dragon’s heartstring – had first woken Draco’s magic… and Pansy … Pansy Parkinson, the selfish, prejudiced, narrow-minded, shrewish, promiscuous Pansy Parkinson was the first to wake his heart. While the girl was neither pure nor sweet, Draco’s love for her was, and it was Voldemort’s callous, impulsive rape and murder of the girl to assuage his ego and thirst for pain that finally saved Draco from following in his father’s depraved path. Though the little chit grated on Severus’s nerves every time he watched her throw herself at his godson in public, only to later be caught again and again having slipped out after curfew to pursue her illicit affairs with any student (male or otherwise) whom had caught her fancy for the evening, he could, nevertheless, hardly deny that for all of her abundant and glaring faults – she was his godson’s first true love and the loss of that love, while devastating had also woken Draco’s humanity in a way that nothing else could have.

Heartstring and Pansy…

While Severus had no need to guess at the phoenix core of Harry’s wand after the third tri-wizard task, the true question was who paralleled Pansy – by capturing Harry’s heart first. Before he’d seen the intimacy between Harry and Neville earlier that morning, Severus would have automatically assumed the answer to be the ginger blossoms that he took to symbolize Miss Weasley – as probably any one else would have as well. That fact, in itself, should have told him he was wrong. Their challenges so far had shown a fair bit more subtlety than he would have expected, but then the Trio squared had somehow always managed to exceed and out match his expectations. Despite the evidence of Harry’s inclinations, toward men, Severus felt safe in excluding Sirius.

Longbottom’s nickname lingered briefly on his lips, but he bit back the breath it would have been carried on as another parallel to Pansy came to mind accompanied by a second flash of memory from the fourth year. The unquenchable despair that he had witnessed on Potter’s face as he clung to Cedric Diggory’s lifeless form as Dumbledore tried to pull the boy away had haunted and troubled Severus for months afterward – so much so that he had included the astronomy tower into his patrol at random intervals three or four times nightly until the boy slowly came out of his grief. The openly staggering pain that had shown on Harry’s face was almost a mirror for the anguish and despair that he would later see on his godson’s face when Draco came staggering back from Hogsmeade carrying Pansy’s broken and brutalized body back without the aid of any spell. The little chit had died at some point in his escape from Malfoy mansion, without Draco’s knowledge, and Poppy’s final pronouncement had entirely devastated the boy. Even though he had not reconciled the similarities in their grief, before this, the very similar expression had set off several more months of nightly trips to the astronomy tower.

As he considered the possibility that Diggory had been Harry’s first love, the parchement warmed slightly and rustled threateningly (sounding almost annoyed) as it reminded Severus that its author’s were the often impatient, prank prone Weasley twins. Giving an incorrect answer, or not giving the correct in a sufficiently timely fashion was rather likely to have an explosive result. As if to confirm his suspicion, thin tendrils of smoke rose from each the symbols to form numbers mid-air.

One tendril melted away as the other warped.

A wispy leg of smoke turned and curled back in on itself.

Shaking his head in amusement, Severus watched the smoke unwinding into a seven as he answered with quiet certainty: “Hickory”.

In response, the smoke rising from the enchanted parchment began to twist and separate into small silhouettes of each friend that one after another shot past Severus, then curled around his back, and swiftly returned – diving back into the parchment with identifying traces of Severus’s magic that they had been designed to gather. As the small wispy figures converged they became indistinct floating over the parchment like a thin layer of clouds. After a moment, the tiny clouds broke into more natural formations leaving gaps through which Severus could easily see and read an expansive blueprint of the property that seemed to extend to the edges of the parchment with a suggestion that the actual property carried beyond the edges.

Once again, gold lettering scrolled across the ivy vine still running across the top.

To refine picture, select landmark or person present in Green man’s grove, and say ‘zoom’.

Nodding in response to the instructions, Severus focused his thoughts on his wife, murmured her name just for good measure, and cast the ‘zoom’ charm. At the first breath of her name, the orientation of the map changed directions and skidded across the page until it settled on a manor house that began to expand as he finished the charm.

Falling Stars Index

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 04:01:37 GMT

Title: Falling Stars

Rating: PG, Angst

Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

Falling Stars, Part 1
Had Severus’s reflexes been even a second slower, the wizarding
world would have lost it’s latest hero. Instead, without pausing to think,
Severus roared ‘Immobillus’ and froze even the air surrounding Potter so that
the child hung over the edge of the tower– staring at the ground below. As his
heart lurched in panic, Severus rushed forward grabbing the boy and
pulling him back in.

Part 2
A suddenly sickening thought struck them both at once. What if they
hadn’t convinced, Harry? What if he hadn’t trusted them? Hermione
began to sway weakly, even as she heard the Headmistress urging,
“Hurry Severus, Hurry. He’s on the roof of the Astronomy tower.”

Part 3
Flitwick was guiding him away – totally misinterpreting his surprise
as distress. For almost a minute, Severus was tempted to startle the tiny
man with a derisive smile at the unsolicited compassion, but if it helped him
get away sooner, he could play the distraught mentor.

Part 4
This notice is to inform you that, as of twelve midnight, on this day,
under the 3rd square of Mars and Saturn, I formally tender my resignation
of the position of Potions Instructor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft
and Wizardry. After twenty-two years of gainful employment, the
exigencies of war have made returning to the classroom inconceivable.

Part 5
“He was willing to simply throw his life away on a single interpretation
of a prophesy? How dim is this child?” Chuckling at her mildly irreverent
wit and amused that she’d make a comment like that about the cherished
boy-who-lived, Severus stared at his diminutive wife, feeling somehow relieved
that she had not falsely improved her appearance in the intervening years.

Part 6
“I killed off the Snapes, Mom. That’s all. At the manor and here. No more
Snapes ... anywhere. Poof. They’re gone.” Something in her slurred voice
sounded off to Severus as he bent over the table gasping at the pain
in his stomach.

Part 7
“Yeah, I cleared it all. She had a lot more than he did, but I didn’t let go
until I was sure the poison was out of both of their systems. As long as it
didn’t cause any other damage, it should be okay.” Mr. Potter turned
reassuringly to her and swayed as he nodded. “Harry!” The young… healer,
judging by his familiarity with healing spells and techniques jumped
forward and caught his friend.

Part 8
De-aging! Potion De-aging – no less! Not only illegal – after it was used in the
last war to help numerous Death Eaters escape justice for their crimes- but bloody
dangerous as well. Beyond the inherent danger in many of the materials used -just
tailoring the absorption to the recipient’s digestive pattern’s is ruddy difficult-
not to mention, balancing it against the recipient’s magical core.

Part 9
“No, he’s not ill…” Neville’s voice dropped to a tight, half-swallowed
whisper, “At the moment, he’s trying to survive the effects of dragon’s
blood poisoning. He’s descending into more pain than I can even imagine,
and he’s got a very small chance of coming out of it.

Part 10
"...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?”

Part 11
Behind her scowl, Severus watched her eyes snap as she made one
connection after another until the deep creases between her brows
pinched then smoothed letting him know that she… “I’m an idiot,”
Juliette groaned before she turned and started back down the hall.
“No, Jule.” He chided teasingly, “You’re a witch.”

Part 12
A brief grin curled her lips as she nodded, watching in amusement
as they turned to study Potter’s countenance. “Yes, our …son seems to
look a great deal more like his father than I would have expected him to –
given the circumstances.” ... Unlike his daughter, Severus’s son had almost
gaunt features that further accentuated the addition of Severus’s easily
recognizable lips and nose – right down to the thick bump of
cartilage at the ridge of his nose.

Falling Stars, Part 12

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 01:47:38 GMT

Title: Falling Stars

Rating: PG, Angst

Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

from Falling Stars, Part 11

“Harry, I can assure you from the memories that I was privy to in

earlier occulmency sessions that you are in no way a child, whom

I would consider burdensome. Regardless of your ridiculously gryffindorish morality,

I perceive no inherent difficulty or unpleasantry attendant with raising you.

Nor does my wife, Juliette. We have discussed the situation thoroughly,

in fact, and are in complete agreement in that we each fully intend to raise you –

with our daughter- as brother and sister.”

Falling Stars, Part 12

Severus stared at the children curiously- wondering to himself what he had been expecting. To be certain, de-aging potions could be chancy to brew and dangerous to use, but he had carefully studied the potion, Longbottom’s brewing set up, and the modified formula before he allowed Potter and his daughter to take it.

Much to his surprise, though he shouldn’t have been nearly so surprised when he had, himself, endorsed Longbottom to succeed him as the Hogwart’s potions instructor, Severus found that not only had the younger professor anticipated and addressed all of the potential adverse reactions but also had used several uncommon catalyzing agents to make the most benefit of these reactions. The annoying boy had actually improved the potion in a number of ways that Severus had long suspected could be done- though never without the resentment that he could not, on his own, test the improvements himself due to his unwillingness and inability to incessantly simper and coo around the fairies inhabiting the fairy lace. Not even to speak of his frustrating inability to foster the overly sensitive hestia’s lace plant.

Yet, despite his irritation with the fates that it would be none other than the very student - whom he had for so long considered not only his worst student, but also hopelessly inept – who would be the first potion brewer to test his theories in a manner that would have a direct and chief impact on his future… Severus had been relieved to see the improvements that would make the children’s transition smoother, quicker, and less painful. So, perhaps, he should not have been entirely surprised to note that, barely two hours after they had ingested the potion, its recipients had almost completely transformed in their charmed sleep without showing even a single trace of pain.

While he remained deeply concerned about the boy’s more challenging circumstances and their affect on his transformation, Severus couldn’t yet pull his eyes away from his daughter’s face. As he studied the peacefully sleeping child, his were drawn first to the halo of polished black locks. He was rather stunned as his eyes traveled to recognize several of his own sharp features graced by her innocent expression and cherubic features. Her tiny round face softened the sharpness of his aquiline nose and thin lips. His ebony black eyebrows seemed delicate mirrored by her long lashes. Her porcelain skin highlighted the barely present brush of color in her cheeks that she had inherited from him instead of her mother’s rose dappled cheeks. The overall effect had far more appeal than he had believed any combination of his features could create.

Sparing a glance for his wife, who was watching him with wry amusement, Severus murmured, “She is stunning.”

Juliette’s wry smile broke into a smug grin as she answered, “Yes, Love, this time she seems to be more favored by your features than mine and all the better for it.”

“This time?” Severus asked, startled. “The potion should have returned her to her normal appearance at this age. Minus her recently received scars to be certain, but in all other ways as she appeared then.”

“Perhaps, but I suspect that wish magics may have created some interesting effects…”

Even as she spoke, Severus was sharing a skeptical glance with Longbottom – both men wondering if she truly remembered her daughter’s appearance from almost fifteen years earlier – until she finished her comment.

“…for both children.”

“Both children?” the men asked simultaneously as their heads snapped up in surprise.

A brief grin curled her lips as she nodded, watching in amusement as they turned to study Potter’s countenance.

“Yes, our …son seems to look a great deal more like his father than I would have expected him to – given the circumstances.”

Unlike his daughter, Severus’s son had almost gaunt features that further accentuated the addition of Severus’s easily recognizable lips and nose – right down to the thick bump of cartilage at the ridge of his nose. The tell-tale bump, in itself, was proof of his wife’s theory. Rather than adopting the natural structure of his new father’s nose, as his daughter had, the boy had apparently wished his restructured nose to include the thick bump that Severus’s uncle had put there when he broke the then fourteen year-old’s nose and refused to heal it.

But, as unsual as that detail was, two other of Severus’s features were somewhat more startling. In place of Harry’s shaggy, almost untamable, short curls and waves, a gloss of long, straight, midnight black tresses fanned around the child’s head drawing a stark contrast to the child’s pale-unblemished forehead – which gave Severus an actual physical start when he noticed it.

“H-is sc-ar…” Longbottom stuttered as he noticed: “It’s- it’s- it’s gone.”

“Indeed,” Juliette smirked before turning back to her husband seriously.

“If I had maintained any doubt of the child’s intention of become a member of your family, I believe this would have remedied it; although, I find it strangely disturbing that the child could so easily wish his self-image, his self identity, away.”

Solemnly considering his wife’s comment, Severus had to agree: “Yes, the boy does seem to have a penchant for such sacrifices. It is, very definitely, a tendency we will need to address.”

“How about starting by calling him something other than child and boy?” Longbottom spoke up tensely. “Particularly ‘boy’. For years, that’s the only thing his uncle called him. If you start out calling him that, it will only make things harder.”

Barely stifling an overly frank response, Severus nodded abruptly as he took a moment to consider numerous severe gaps in the knowledge that he had of the boy’s childhood and youth. Even the time that the boy spent at Hogwarts was blurred by Severus’s memory of extraneous events.

“You make a valid point. We cannot, of course, continue to call him Harry. De-aging potions, though illegal, are not unknown, and his ‘arrival’ is almost suspiciously timed in it’s proximity to his presumed death. The minister may very well be an idiot, but he is a paranoid, overly suspicious one, who is pre-disposed to view any matter related to me with hostility. As too, for the same reason, it would be safer for Celeste to take up a new identity. Have you any thoughts on the matter?”

“Only one,” his student answered hesitantly.

“And that would be?”

“You should return to Hogwarts. Take up your position again. At least, until the other death eaters and their supporters have been brought to justice. Headmistress McGonagall would welcome you back.”

Severus, for the first time in many years, was struck dumb by his student’s casual generosity. He well understood what giving up the potions instructor’s position would mean for the young professor, who – though the sole heir to his family’s wealth – would have had to rely on its salary to support both the potions and healer’s masteries. Severus, in his youth, though from family of greater wealth and status had not been given that opportunity when he was younger, and as a result, had been left with only Spinner’s End until his later employment had enabled him to rebuild a small but comfortable portion of his former estate. For Longbottom, the pursuit would likely cost him his entire estate up to and including the small manor they were currently in. Whether the offer was made from simple benevolence, out of love for Potter, or in relation so other ulterior motives including the need to ensure their silence on his plans to perform a similar treatment on his own parents, the offer was too much and Severus found that he could not accept it.

“Mr. Longbottom, thank you, but no. While your offer is obviously tendered with typically Gryffindorish, unrealistic generosity, I believe I will have to refuse. If I were once again on my own and so inclined to subject myself to the drama of students who will undoubtedly expect me to relax my standards now that the war is over, regardless of the fact that they could as easily burn, poison, or gas themselves into oblivion during peace time as easily as they could in war… if not more so due to the naturally fading moments of sobriety that seem destined to accompany the diminishing thoughts of war…. If that were the case, then perhaps, I would be more inclined to consider your offer – as impractical as it may be for you to offer it; however, as that is not the case, after twenty plus years of service to both the war effort and the education of several generations of Weasleys (a task equally hazardous), I can now honestly claim myself to be free of those cumbersome duties and ready to consider other pursuits. While I do realize that your offer was quite sincerely motivated, I believe that, at least for the present, I will decline your offer in order to focus my attentions on a considerably smaller number of children, while occasionally indulging in private research and intellectual conversation with Juliet, who –I assure you- was gifted with both a sharp wit and tongue as well as the subtlety to use them to her best advantage. Thank you, however for making it, Neville, your consideration is … notable.”

Glancing between his wife’s sardonic smile and Longbottom’s exasperated expression, Severus enjoyed several quiet moments of anticipating who would react first.

“You old softy,” his wife smirked, just barely beating Longbottom to the punch with an amused comment to the younger professor: “I believe that my husband, in his own ever-the-Slytherin way, was trying to say that he feels it would be inequitable to finally take on the roles of husband and father only to turn around and take up a position that would require him to dedicate his full attentions to the children of half the wizarding families in Great Britain while ignoring his own, but thank you for the offer.”

As the boy glanced between them, Severus nearly broke into chuckling at the young professor’s discomfiture. Longbottom’s expression alone, when Juliette had called him a softy, was comical and to see the boy so neatly undone by his wife’s succinct interpretation only added to his humor and Longbottom’s exasperation, which burst out in a gusty bark of amusement.

“I never noticed before, but you talk just like you write. When I was reading your endorsement, I really wasn’t certain whether you were trying to compliment, threaten, warn, frighten, or encourage me. Don’t you ever just simply say things?” his student complained with a half chuckle.

Catching Juliette’s eye, Severus quirked his lips into an ironic smile at the memory of a similar complaint that she had once made as he answered, quite simply, “No.”, and smiled broadly as a spark in her slate irises.

“Neville, my husband has never felt even the slightest compunction to confine his words to a single purpose and was very likely intending each purpose you suggested.”

“Indeed,” Severus mocked lightly before continuing, “Your general suggestion of Hogwarts does have merit, however, though as my wife has pointed out recently, even Hogwarts has not been an entirely safe. It will be considered nevertheless.”

Envying the masks of serenity that Professor Snape and his wife were wearing as they watched for the de-aging potion to complete its transformation, Neville nodded quietly and returned to his work table, resting his forehead in his palms. Even though his mentor had offered to call him when Harry woke, Neville could not reconcile leaving his love before his was certain that there was nothing more he could do.

Falling Stars, Part 11

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 01:37:43 GMT

Title: Falling Stars

Rating: PG, Angst

Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

from Falling Stars, Part 10

How dare he interfere. As if being able to brew the blasted potion

gives him the right to…pry into my affairs.

Speaking as insufferably as if he were the headmaster.

What I tell my child… my child is to my own discretion, and I’ll not have him

or anyone chastising the girl as if he knows what she’s suffered, what she’s lost.

He was barely seconds away from chasing after the boy

when his daughter’s pitiful voice cut through his anger.

““Mama, is it true? Did I po-ison the boy who lived?”

Falling Stars, Part 11

Severus followed Juliette quietly until they were out the door and out of sight.

“Well?” She asked turning ti face his expected ire, but was stunned to see him wearing a wry smile.

“Your description of her choices were very disparate.”

“Yes.” She grumbled.

“Jule,” Severus had to stifle a surprised laugh as her head shot up, allowing him to see the anxiety, frustration, and no little anger roiling behind her eyes. He had forgotten how long it could take for her to drop her defensiveness when they disagreed.

“Jule, I agree with your little tirade in there and felt it was particularly well done, in fact.”

“Really?” She asked with archy skepticism.

“Then, perhaps you could explain why you persisted in interrupting me.” She demanded, her pique leaving her voice high-pitched and harsh even though she was whispering.

Behind her scowl, Severus watched her eyes snap as she made one connection after another until the deep creases between her brows pinched then smoothed letting him know that she…

“I’m an idiot,” Juliette groaned before she turned and started back down the hall.

“No, Jule.” He chided teasingly, “You’re a witch.”

“You needed her to see you as a possible father figure, instead of just a ‘Snape’ or she would have still rejected the offer out of hand. I am… I … I reg…”

“Regrets are unnecessary,” he supplied quickly, knowing that she found the task of making apologies just as difficult as she did. “It was certainly your place to, Longbottom, however…”

“I believe he was merely trying to…”

“I know what he was trying to do: spare my feelings – that ridiculous Gryffindor. I might have expected that reaction from someone of his charities, but it is a different matter entirely that he would have made the decision without consultation to reveal Potter’s identity. You realize that we will have to obliviate her if she chooses to remain an adult.”

“True, but it was something I would have done in any event.” Juliette offered. “It wouldn’t have been feasible to let her keep the memories of what had happened at Snape manor, if we had, there would have been more events like this until she came to terms with what they did.”

“Nevertheless…”

“Sev, did you happen to hear how they spoke to each other earlier?”

Shaking his head, Severus wondered what he had missed. “Why?”

“I am not entirely certain, though I suspect there may be something more to …” Juliette’s words and hold on her husband’s attention trailed off as they turned into the next room.

Oblivious to the obvious symptoms of the fever that was consuming him, Potter was sitting up in bed, albeit shakily, with the hand that wasn’t holding him up cupped behind Longbottom’s head and pulling him into a gentle kiss. The portion of his forehead that they could see was pallid, glistening with sweat, and growing pink with an increasing flush, but with effort, he was clearly holding himself steady as he deepened the kiss before pulling away and wiping what must have been tears from Longbottom’s face with gentle fingers. Though he tried to camouflage it in a slow recline, Potter’s strength quickly gave out and forced him to lie back on the pillows, panting.

As they watched, Longbottom shook his head to bring him back himself then tenderly reached up and brushed Potter’s sweat drenched fringe away from his face, gasping lightly when his fingertips gently brushed his … companion’s forehead.

“Merlin, Hare, you’re burning up. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Potter’s voice when he chuckled his response startled Severus, who had tended the boy many times through many injuries, but had never heard him sounding so exhausted.

“Hmmm. Admit it. Nev.” He paused to gulp air in a gesture that had Severus and Juliette glancing at each other in worry. The onset and increase of the boy’s symptoms were troubling.

“Admit what?”

“I’m so hot —” he chuckled, intentionally misreading Longbottom’s concerned comment, “you didn’t even notice Professor Snape entering. Not that he doesn’t …have that whole spooky quiet thing … going for him, but your sixth… sense must be off.”

Longbottom… Neville… carefully and softly punched Potter’s… Harry’s arm and chuckled, “God’s, your cute, but it won’t distract me.”

“If you’d give… me… a chance, I… could,” Harry’s wanton promise was disturbingly undermined by the fact that he could barely carry the breath to make it.

“Here, take this.” Neville offered a vial from his pocket and frowned when Harry shook his head.

“No…” he paused as a wave of stiff pain caused him to wince… “No… too mu-zzy. Don’t,” broke off in a half swallowed whisper, and continued gasping: “miss… one … m—om-ent.”

“Oh, Har-r-ree.” The anguish and hopelessness in Neville’s voice shook Severus and evaporated his irritation in a slow wave of grim understanding and more than a token of respect. If their positions were reversed, he was well aware that he would not have shown the same equanimity that Neville had in treating his daughter. Though he had never been one who was inclined to apologize for intruding, Severus felt remarkably uncomfortable interfering with what was undoubtedly to be their last moments as companions.

“Come Jule, we should…”

“No, Professor.” Neville paused to palm tears from his cheek before he slowly stood and turned to face the couple. “There’s too little time to indulge in private moments, and I will not waste what time there is in discreetly confining my affections to clandestine interludes that we can’t afford to take.”

Turning back to Harry, Neville reached out to tenderly cup his partner’s cheek then pulled away sadly as it caused his partner to cringe in pain. As if to underscore his intention to show his affections, he spoke in a softer more gentled tone than before.

“Love, I have to go get things ready, and Professor Snape can explain what’s going to happen better than I, anyway.” His words stumbled glumly as he noticed Harry’s hand spasm and convulse beneath the coverlet, then promised fervently: “But, I’ll be back as swiftly as I can.”

Turning quickly, he departed in the silent apparition step that Granger had developed for the order barely a year after their graduation.

Sparing a smug smile for Juliette, who was gaping at the space Neville had been at only moments before, Severus quirked an eyebrow at her visible astonishment then stepped up to Harry’s bedside.

“Harry, did Mr…Neville explain the difficulty?”

Harry responded with a sharp, tight and obviously painful nod, then gasped: “Dra-gon… c-ore…”

“Yes, precisely. He told you it was irreversible? No, don’t answer that. I’ll try to avoid questions. It is irreversible and possibly untreatable; however, Neville is aware of a French healer’s study that has used potion de-aging to halt and even reverse lesser forms of core-burn. There is no guarantee, but the theories underlying the trial are far more sound than those that Granger relied on to develop her little slide step.”

“D-gin-g.” Harry’s voice sounded terribly fragile, “dan-gr-s?”

“Yes, it can be. Particularly in these circumstances, where there are other magics interfering with possible affects, nevertheless, both Neville and I believe this is your best – if not only - option to at least minimize the pain you’ll face.”

“Tol’ me … ‘at.”

“He told you that? Okay, I take it then you wish to know the dangers. There is, of course, always the possibility of death, though with the variation that he has brewed, that should be a more remote possibility. The side effects may actually be less adverse in your case than others might consider them to be as hestia’s lace tends to dull and inhibit traumatic memories. Fairies breath also has that effect – sometimes to a dangerous extent for adults, but as you will be a child, the influence should wear off by the time that it would have been problematic. There are other minor effects, but as with dragon’s blood they are sentience based, so it would be preferable not to mention them.”

“kay. Where?”

“Where will it be done? At Neville’s home. He has stated that he has appropriate facilities.”

“N-. Wh’r…me?

Not entirely understanding, Severus glanced to his wife in hopes that she understood, but Juliette sadly shook her head.

“Harry, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we don’t understand.”

“hhnh-hh” his young charge groaned, clenching his fists as he stiffened then gasped.

“w’tl” it sounded like a plea, which Severus would have quickly granted if he could have but understood it.

“w’t….r”

“Water?” Juliette tried hopefully.

“’sss.”

Rushing to comply with what they hoped was an affirmative response, Juliette conjured a glass of water and handed it to her husband. As he helped the young man take several careful sips, she went on to transfigure a tissue into several face clothes and conjured a dish of ice water. Slipping around to the other side of the bed, she dampened a cloth and laid it across his forehead – turning to widen her eyes in warning at her husband when she felt the intense heat pouring off of the child’s skin.

Suppressing his frown, Severus took the glass away from Harry’s lips and asked gently, “More?”

“nuh.” Harry mumbled weakly. “m-e? wh’r pt e?”

Severus studied the boy’s rapidly glazing eyes with concern, the onset of Kanner’s core-burn was known to be swift, but usually over the span of two to three days, not hours. Of course, the child was almost inherently and difficultly unusual in his responses to everything.

“Sev… I believe we should floo the young man.” Juliette suggested gently and left with quick relief when he nodded.

“w’r e? wh’r?” Harry pled insistently.

“Harry, I cannot understand what you are asking?” Severus responded with sad frustration. The child was in so much pain that he knew the question had to be important, but he had not even the slightest idea what the boy was asking. It was heartbreaking to watch when the boy dropped his head back and thick rivulets of tears streaked down both cheeks.

“Child, I’m truly sorry. Perhaps if you rest and focus on catching your breath, you will be able to ask again later.”

Severus doubted that would be a possibility, but if the young man wore himself out rapidly his ability to cope with the de-aging potion would be seriously jeopardized.

Harry seemed to accept his suggestion, releasing the tension in his shoulders, for the moment, but when Juliette returned with their daughter at her side, the boy flipped his head desperately and begged: “pls tl, wh’r pt…wh’r pt m-e?”

“Sev. He said to bring him through now.”

“Very well.” Severus acknowledged without turning to look at her.

“Harry, we’re going to Neville now.”

“wh’r put me?” Harry whimpered in response, but though the words were clearer, Severus had no idea what they meant.

“Try to relax, child.”

“I think he’s asking where you’re going to put him after he’s de-aged. If the papers were right, he might think he’s going to an orphanage or hospital.” Celeste suggested hesitantly.

“Is that it? Is that what you’re asking?” Severus asked hopefully and waited for some indication that they had hit on the correct question. But, several long seconds passed without response.

“Severus?!?”

“Sir, what’s wr…” Celeste trailed off when her mother closed a firm hand around her arm. Severus pointedly ignored the harsh intake of breath in response as he studied the boy’s panic stricken eyes.

“Harry? … Legillmens. ” Without the mildest resistance, Severus slipped into the boy’s mind and found Harry. The mental impression that they had years earlier crafted to communicate within Harry’s mind was huddled inside a sphere of what appeared to be intense sensory information. As soon as he drew close to the sphere, he was assaulted with waves of chaotic sound and images, between bursts of searing pain so intense that several of Voldemort’s worst tortures (after Severus’s betrayal was revealed) paled by comparison. Persevering, with gritted teeth, Severus pressed through until he was standing above the impression.

“Harry…Child, can you hear me?” The roar of sound engulfing them drowned out his question, but somehow, something got through, and Harry’s head snapped up in surprise.

“Sir?” the boy mouthed.

“Potter.” With great effort, Severus wrapped his mind around the impression forming a mental shield, buffering the child.

“Child, I cannot hold this long. Headmaster Dumbledore informed me that you had become capable of shielding just before the last battle. It would be advisable if you raised them against this maelstrom- at least until you can be treated.”

The onslaught of sensation was agonizing to bear, but Severus held his ground against it as he urged the impression, who seemed suddenly and inexplicably hesitant to build his shields. Finally, just as he was about to lose patience and strength, Harry marshaled his strength with an atlas-like shrug and stood. But, instead of beginning to build something, he took three strained breaths and pushed his mental hands in front of him into the darkness splitting it like a curtain. He glanced uncertainly into the barrier that Severus was holding, but sensing the toll it was taking on his mentor, Harry committed himself and parted the curtain of darkness – pulling it around himself until it faded into nothingness. In its place, his mental chamber had expanded to resemble a muggle planetarium with images scrolling across the interior ceiling, distant but stark and clear.

With the maelstrom blocked, Severus could coalesce into his own mental impression and joined the exhausted boy’s impression as it settled into one of the audience’s seats.

“It wasn’t so much that I learned how to shield, as it was that we discovered that I have been shielding all along. The reason that I was never able to clear my mind and find my center was that I was shielding the worst of my uncle’s treatment even from myself. Once we discovered that, he helped me expand my shields and create this so that I could face them when I was ready to.”

“Have you tried?”

The boy shifted uncomfortably before nodding.

“Yeah, this morning.”

“How did it transpire?”

“Bloody awful,” the child growled as he stared angrily at the screen. “He was a great horrible git who hated me for no reason. You at least had a reason, but he didn’t. I never did anything to him; my father and mother never did, but he still hated us.”

The violence of the boy’s feelings seemed shockingly uncontrolled as did the wracking shudder that the child suffered after his rant.

“Sorry,” Harry continued in a small embarrassed voice. “That was kind-of built in.”

“Built in? How so?”

“I kind of can’t lie in here and I can’t hide the way I’m feeling. The Headmaster convinced me to do it because he said I would be inclined to avoid how I felt back then and just brush over them, and it made sense when he said it.”

“But?”

“I guess it still makes sense, but everything’s so hectic and crappy out there, I would have liked someplace to hide from it all.” Harry responded with an uncomfortable grimace that drew a chuckle from Severus.

“That wasn’t quite what you were planning to say was it.”

Harry’s head shook negatively, but his lips stayed cautiously and tightly pressed.

“Very well, I won’t press the question; however, I do have a suggestion: do you remember how he added that constriction to your shields?”

Harry nodded carefully.

“Very well, I would suggest that you add the mood adjustment component that you learned in seventh year charms, so that you won’t be shown memories that you are not capable of comfortably accepting in that moment and if you need a haven, you will only be presented calming materials.

Closing his eyes for several moments after Severus’s instruction, Harry concentrated on the planetarium’s auditorium and made the changes his mentor suggested. As they watched, violent pictures of his uncle’s abuse suddenly flickered and fell, fading into the background. To Severus’s surprise, they weren’t immediately replaced and many of the screens remained blank. He didn’t ask, but the implications were apparent.

While the child had ample violence to paint the screens with, his peaceful moments were few and far between.

“Child, my daughter thought you may have been asking what would happen to you after you were de-aged. Was she correct?”

Harry smiled gratefully, for the change of topic, and nodded: “Yes, Sir, I was just wondering where’d I’d be placed.”

“Placed? Do you want to be placed?”

“No!” The boy answered sharply and immediately, then more uncertainly, “But, I don’t want to be a burden, either. I know you said you’d protect me, but this isn’t exactly what you signed- on for.”

“Harry, I can assure you from the memories that I was privy in earlier occulmency sessions that you are in no way a child I would consider burdensome. Regardless of your ridiculously gryffindorish morality, I perceive no inherent difficulty or unpleasantry attendant with raising you. Nor does my wife, Juliette. We have discussed the situation thoroughly, in fact, and are in complete agreement in that we each fully intend to raise you – with our daughter- as brother and sister.”

Before they could discuss it further, the auditorium’s screens flared brightly – beginning to play a recording of his comment.

As he recognized the soft repetition of his own voice, he turned to watch the screen briefly, his eyes widening in surprise at the gentle though adamant expression on his face, and chuckled as he realized what his words must have meant to the often-neglected child.

“I take it that meets with your approval?”

Blushing fiercely, Harry nodded stiffly.

“Yes, Sir.”

Severus knew, from Harry’s earlier comments, that the boy was being honest, though it was equally obvious that his voice was laced with no little amount of uncertainty.

“You have reservations?”

The child shrugged lightly.

“I believe that would be a yes. May I ask what they are?”

Harry shrugged again, shifted, shrugged, and clenched his teeth as Severus watched him with some bemusement. Just as Severus was prepared to retract the question that the child was clearly fighting against, Harry blurted out: “I’m kind of difficult. To like, I mean. I don’t know why, but I am.”

“To my evidence the reverse is true; in fact, you seem to have developed quite a following. The Weasley’s, Granger, Dumbledore, Hagrid, Longbottom, The Creevey’s, The lovegoods, and numerous others seem to have fallen under your sway.”

“That’s different. They liked me because I was the boy-who-lived before they got to know me. They needed me, but the people I grew up with at home and at school – the ones who didn’t need me or didn’t know who I was… none of them ever liked me.

Severus considered the confession carefully, realizing that it was an assumption which he could only correct with time and attention. With that in mind, he charted a narrow course between encouragements that he was certain the boy would not be able or prepared to believe and simple facts that the boy would be inclined to believe, but would in no way be comforted by.

“Presumably, you are referring to your muggle relatives, neighbors, and schoolmates?”

Severus waited patiently for Harry’s nod before continuing with obvious patience: “While I can not assess their choices without knowing the specific details, it has been my particular experience that muggles rarely have the ability to recognize what the value of what’s before them. Once I dispensed with past recriminations, I find that I have rarely had that difficulty and intend to demonstrate my new appreciation at every available opportunity. Now, I believe that I should go and assist Professor Longbottom in his preparations.”

Harry only nodded, but as Severus departed, he was smugly comforted to hear a mental recording of his second comment play across the screens.

Falling Stars, Part 10

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 10:04:13 GMT

Title: Falling Stars

Rating: PG, Angst

Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

from Falling Stars, Part 9

“No, he’s not ill…” Neville’s voice dropped to a tight, half-swallowed whisper,

“At the moment, he’s trying to survive the effects of dragon’s blood poisoning.

He’s descending into more pain than I can even imagine, and he’s got a very

small chance of coming out of it. I can-t talk about him – not now, not with you.

I’ll get your mum, but I – I need to be with Harry.”

Escaping her side, Neville turned and stumbled to a halt in astonishment and distress. Professor Snape and his wife were standing in the doorway staring at him

with mixed looks of alarm, resentment, and anger.

Falling Stars, Part 10

Seething anger wrapped itself around Severus’s throat as he let Longbottom pass.

How dare he interfere. As if being able to brew the blasted potion gives him the right to…

pry into my affairs. Speaking as insufferably as if were the headmaster. What I tell my child… my child is to my own discretion, and I’ll not have him or anyone chastising the girl as if he knows what she’s suffered, what she’s lost.

He was barely seconds away from chasing after the boy when his daughter’s pitiful voice cut through his anger.

“Mama, is it true? Did I po-ison the boy who lived?”

The pain on her face tore through him as he tried to gauge how much of the truth she should be told.

“Well, isn’t that what you wanted?” he was astonished to hear his wife nearly snarl.

“Jule,” he warned softly, “She’s …” … but his wife was ignoring him as she stared angrily into her daughter’s face.

“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.

Falling Stars Part 9

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 10:00:05 GMT

Title: Falling Stars

Rating: PG, Angst

Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

from Falling Stars, Part 8

Neville waited barely a second as she shared a glance with her husband

to see if he thought they were interpreting his statement in the same way

before he chimed in, “Barely two minutes before Harry summoned me,

I finished decanting the finished potion…enough for two recipients.”

Falling Stars, Part 9

Leaving his suggestion to settle in, Neville quietly turned and headed back up the stairs. As he reached the top, a soft sound caught his attention and drew him to the door of the room next to Harry’s. Celeste had woken and was sitting up as far as the sticking charm would let her, softly sobbing into fists curled tightly against her lips to stifle the sounds she was making.

“Here now.” He murmured softly, “What’s this? Are you in pain?”

Seeming almost oblivious to his approach, until he was standing beside her, she finally shook her head no, but the fists remained pressed just as tightly to her lips and the sobs, if they let up- did so only enough to let her catch her breath before another round.

“Harry said you had quite a bit of it in your system, so it would only make sense if you’re feeling off – even emotional, things like that can mess with your magical core and make it difficult, if not impossible, to balance your emotions. I could get you a calming drought if you’d like.”

“Harry? W-w-was it him? I thought it was him, but then he can’t be, he wouldn’t be caught dead in my father’s company.” Celeste’s eyes fluttered up in confusion at his ironic snort. She, of course, couldn’t know the ironic accuracy of her wording: Harry was being caught dead, or rather pretending to be dead in her father’s company and was lucky to do so if Neville was correctly interpreting what he’d overheard the night that fudge had crashed the Hogwarts celebration looking for Harry.

He knew that it wasn’t safe, or his job, to give her the truth, but somehow – Neville felt it was impermissible for her to think so harshly about her father when he was doing so much for Harry.

“As a matter of fact, he is. I’m Neville Longbottom… a mate of Harry’s and of late a Professor at Hogwarts. But, look, you can’t tell anyone.”

“Why? The war’s over isn’t it?”

“For everyone else, yeah, but Harry’s never been that lucky. There’s someone in the Ministry, or rather a couple of someones, who have it out for him, and were willing to kill everyone Harry cared about just to get to him. They even planned to blame it on some unnamed death eaters making a revenge attack. Your Da’ helped him get away and pull the cloak over the Ministry’s eyes, so they wouldn’t know that they still needed to look for him.”

Her expression flared with alarm as she grabbed his hand.

“You can’t trust him. He’s a death eater, everyone in his family is. Pureblood, inbred bigots who only know how to hate. They hate muggles and half-bloods… and everything that Harry Potter stands for. He’s not safe here.” She warned in a harsh, urgent whisper.

Neville couldn’t keep from staring at her in shock, wondering how she could even think that about her own Da’. Even if he’d kept it a secret from her so that she couldn’t accidentally jeopardize his war efforts, she should have known her own father better than that. Remembering the way her father had watched her as they waited for her to come back to consciousness, Neville suddenly realized that there was a very real possibility that she knew nothing about her father. The former potions professor had been watching her with intensely puzzled concern as though he really wasn’t even how much he should be worried.

“Look. You’re wrong about your D- your father. No!” He interrupted quickly when she began to protest. “At most, you’ve probably seen your father a couple of times out of the year – maybe not even a month or more, but for the last thirteen years, I’ve seen him the rest of the year. During that time, I’ve some how managed to be witness a number of his best and worst traits…his best and worst moments. When he seemed to have betrayed the light by killing Dumbledore – he was forced into seclusion, persecuted, hated, and nearly killed so that he could protect the secret that Dumbledore was still alive preparing for the final battle, he was dragged into Voldemort’s dungeon’s and tortured for days but didn’t give up that secret or Harry’s location. I was there. I saw how much he suffered when he could have avoided their suspicion and protected himself by revealing either. If he had been inclined to betray Harry, that’s when he would have done it.”

Watching her eyes widen in surprise, he waited for his first argument to sink in, knowing somehow that it wouldn’t be quite enough. He almost hesitated to continue, but he knew that his reluctant mentor would probably never divulge the most telling detail that undermined her opinion. With that in mind he continued, “Of the many things that I have learned about your father, I think the three most important have been that he is an intensely proud, difficult, and angry man; he never defends himself (even when he was overly justified in his actions); and he never shares more information than is absolutely necessary to the situation. Because of those traits, I’m almost positive that he won’t tell you this, but I think you need to know. Among the many mistaken things that you have said about him one of the easiest to correct is your belief that he is a pureblood – he’s not, and he’s not a hypocrite either. He’s not an easy, or always likeable man, but he’s not what you’ve said either. If you give him a chance, you’ll see that for yourself.”

Watching her eyes, Neville waited for her to digest both statements, and sighed when he caught the flare of rebellious certainty light her eyes. Of course, he shouldn’t have expected her to be swayed this easily. Didn’t those fathomless obsidian eyes prove that she was Snape’s child. What on earth made him think that she would be any less stubborn or Slytherin than her father?

“Look, you don’t have to believe me or agree with it; just be aware of the possibility that you might be mistaken, so you don’t pull another stunt like this and hurt someone else. Harry won’t be able to save you or them next time.”

“What? Why? Is he … ill?” Her voice cracked with anxiety as she realized why Harry might be ill, but the sympathy that he’d had for her earlier evaporated as he thought about the person laying in the next room.

“No, he’s not ill…” Neville’s voice dropped to a tight, half-swallowed whisper, “At the moment, he’s trying to survive the effects of dragon’s blood poisoning. He’s descending into more pain than I can even imagine, and he’s got a very small chance of coming out of it. I can-t talk about him – not now, not with you. I’ll get your mum, but I – I need to be with Harry.”

Escaping her side, Neville turned and stumbled to a halt in astonishment and distress. Professor Snape and his wife were standing in the doorway staring at him with mixed looks of alarm, resentment, and anger.

“Outside!”

Nodding, Neville stopped just inside the door to comment, “I’ll be with Harry,” then passed between them as they barely parted to give him room.

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 09:46:02 GMT

Title: Falling Stars

Rating: PG, Angst

Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

from Falling Stars, Part 7

“No, oh no. Harry, wake up. Wake up, Hare.

Can you hear me? Come on Hare wake up!”

After almost throwing his wand back and forth across his friend’s body

as he murmured the diagnostic spell, Longbottom hesitated before

pulling the wand back to read the energy patterns

now scrolling across its surface, then steeled himself, read it,

and muttered a long virulent stream of biting profanities.

Falling Stars, Part 8

After closing the door on the two sleeping men, Severus gestured for his wife to follow him back downstairs. They paused to check on their daughter in the room beside, but she was still firmly sleeping with a sticking charm to hold her their when she woke.

When they reached the sitting room again, Juliette numbly poured each of them a tea and joined him at the table.

“Severus, I don’t understand. What is…”

“Kanner’s Core-Burn Syndrome?” Severus asked with a small amount of shock.

Juliette had been a NEWT student the first year that he taught: one of the most talented and least intimidated students that he taught in fact. Unlike many of the student’s in that early class, who complained regularly about the unwieldy amount of work that he gave them out of his early nervousness to prove himself capable of teaching the course – Juliette never complained and often went well beyond the scope of the assignment to the point that when the NEWTS finally arrived, she ended up complaining that they had seemed “closer to a third year pop quiz than a test to ascertain one’s professional acumen.” She should have gone on for her potions mastery.

Severus paused almost wincing as he remembered yet another way that he had failed his wife: had she been with him during the war, he would have encouraged her to step out of the suffocating model of docile, pureblood, society wife that had been forced on the pureblood women of his and earlier generations. He would have seen to it that she had sufficient finances to pay the tuition of a potions and/or whatever other mastery or masteries she had chosen as well as the time and space to pursue them, but sending her into the care of his rabidly traditionalist cousin had been a mistake on many fronts - only one of which was denying her the right to pursue an occupation suited to her fabulous intellect and talents.

Type your cut contents here.

“Sev? Kanner’s core-burn syndrome?” She paused to study him with a judicious, appraising eye, before continuing: “You can explore your regrets later…. After I have a better appreciation of the situation and we have come up with a feasible course of action.”

“Of course,” Severus answered dryly, appreciating her accurate estimation even if he did feel slightly discomforted that she had read him so well.

“Well ordered priorities are essential,” he noted referring back to a bit of inside humor they once shared.

“Indeed.”

“As Mister Longbottom has already stated, Mister Potter was able to sufficiently eject the dragon’s blood itself before it reached his heart, where it would have been immediately fatal; however, it seems that his uncle’s early mistreatment (as one might expect given that the man was a muggle) did not prepare the boy to throw off the dragon’s blood’s accompanying core energy. This, in itself, is not an unknown circumstance – particularly in poisoning victims from remote areas who are treated by lower-level healers, who do not know of the need to treat it as a magical taint as well.’

‘The result of this is Kanner’s core-burn syndrome, a currently irreversible condition in which the Dragon’s pure core energy, that was carried in its blood, rejects the lesser core energy of its human victim. Given the unfathomable mystical power imbued in the Dragon’s energy, this energy overwhelms its recipient’s systems in order to burn the lesser magical core out. The energy, itself, while somewhat sentience-sensitive, is not actually sentient and does not have the ability to recognize that the destruction of its host’s magical core results in the destruction of it as well.’

‘In any event, this core-burn results in intense pain that overwhelms and destroys the nervous system, 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. Yet, strangely, perhaps perversely, the mind itself persona, emotions, and intellect are left intact while the body slowly burns the magical core out – denying its victim even the release of insanity that the cruciatis induces as an escape from intense pain. Perhaps even more ironically, the greater and purer a wizard or witch’s magics – the longer his or her body resists the burn – the longer the torture.” Severus finally finished, dropping his forehead into his palms as though the explanation itself had exhausted him.

“Merlin, that poor-poor child. How horrible. Is there nothing that can be done?” Juliette wiped tears from the edges of her cheek as she considered the child’s almost cursed life. Everyone in the wizarding world had long been aware of the child’s sufferings after his seventh year interview with a prophet reporter in which he set many of the malignments slung by Rita Skeeter straight, and many including herself had hoped that after the war he would finally have a chance to live. But, it seemed that the young man was to have no such chance… thanks to her daughter’s breakdown.

“No. To my knowledge, no one…”

“Yes.” A voice tiredly and quietly spoke over him as Mr. Longbottom appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Mr. Longbottom?” Severus asked archly. “Would you care to explain your answer?”

“Neville, please. We may no longer be colleagues…” at Severus’s raised eyebrow, he quickly qualified, “in the order if no where else, but we are adults with more than a passing knowledge of each other – who would in all likelihood be friends if we were so inclined. Using my given name is only appropriate.”

“As you would, Neville.” Severus ignored his wife’s amused glance, more interested in the boy’s answer than such social niceties. “Explain!”

“Well, I don’t have direct proof that this would work. Wait!” he threw up a hand to forestall Severus’s sharp retort. “There is a treatment used to treat the lesser core-burn effects of cruciatis torture, and it hasn’t been tried on anyone with this level of core-burn, but I believe that its use is suggested by the prophecy.”

Severus was ready to sneer at the suggestion that a lower level treatment would have any effect on dragon’s energy, until Long… Neville mentioned the prophecy.

“How?”

“If I remember correctly,” the young man paused to reach into his robe, pull out a walking pouch as he approached, and searched it until he finally pulled out a folded piece of parchment, which he handed to Severus as he continued, “I believe the prophecy included the stanza “So, in death’s grim protection, go alone and forlorn, to be made whole, to be reborn.”

Scanning the report of a French potions study on the efficacy of de-aging potions in the treatment of fifth level previously irreversible core-burns, Severus quickly read the most pertinent details and finally stared at the parchment almost blankly until Juliette gently took it from his grasp.

De-aging! Potion De-aging – no less! Not only illegal – after it was used in the last war to help numerous Death Eaters escape justice for their crimes- but bloody dangerous as well. Beyond the inherent danger in many of the materials used -just tailoring the absorption to the recipient’s digestive pattern’s is ruddy difficult- not to mention, balancing it against the recipient’s magical core. Severus’s thoughts reeled at the possibility, but the theories behind the French study were sound.

“There are complexities to your suggestion, Mr. Longbottom that you might not have considered.” He began, taking on the role of the devil’s barrister.

“I’m well aware.” The young man answered in a surprisingly hard voice.

“It is, for instance, illegal.”

“Only in Great Britain, and only because of the death eater’s misuse of it.” Neville challenged.

“The potion ingredients ar...”

“Controlled materials, I know.” Neville waved the concern away. “But, by some remarkable coincidence, I happen to be researching those very ingredients in my potion’s mastery studies and have quite large amounts in stock of each material.”

The response sounded almost too pat, but Severus didn’t quite know where the falsehood lay, so continued to the next concern.

“Due to its illegality, we cannot involve the school in this – so lack an up-to-date lab as well as the benefits of the schools hospital wing.”

“Actually, that’s the least of our worries; I have a shielded, fidelus-charmed, modernized potion’s lab and recovery rooms set up at Greenman’s glen.”

While it made sense, given Longbottom’s studies, that the boy would such labs and facilities – Severus still felt as though the answer seemed too ready.

“Well, it seems as though you have thought this through.”

“More than…” Neville confirmed, then explained at Severus’s curious glance: “The French trial would not accept either of my parents because, according to intake specialist, their injuries occurred too long ago to promise the prognosis needed for the first round of studies.”

Both Severus and Juliette nodded in understanding, but Severus’s role as devil’s barrister wasn’t entirely complete.

“You do realize that if you were to be discovered or even suspected of brewing an illegal potion, you would forfeit any opportunity to achieve either your healer’s license or your potion’s mastery.”

“Hmmm. A license that I don’t have, yet – in exchange for parent’s that I’ve longed for all of my life. Somehow, it’s a decision I can live with. Look, I’d give up any career chance and sign on as Filtch’s assistant if it would give me a chance to help my family, and that includes Harry.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that he does seem to inspire such dogmatic dedication. Very well, have you decided what potion variation you intend to use?”

“Hestia’s lace and Fairy breath.”

The selection was very nearly ideal for the purpose as both ingredients were mystically potent and remarkably effective in treating victims of trauma, violence, and powerful curses… particularly those causing intense pain. The boy apparently had thought it through. Additionally, though, the materials were rarely used due to the requirement that the potion maker personally grow the two ingredients, they were very well suited to Longbottom’s personality.

To Severus’s knowledge not one in twenty of the best known potion masters were able to grow Hestia’s lace, a delicate flower that could only be added while still living but that would quickly die at the merest trace of a negative emotions, including impatience and frustration – emotions that Neville Longbottom seemed to be in persistently short supply of. Similarly, few potions makers could claim the gentleness and kindness required to lure and keep fairies inhabiting the fairy’s breath plant.

It was a formula that Severus, for obvious reasons, could not brew, but both men knew that he would be too occupied attempting to cast and maintain the necessary pain management charms and spells that Potter would need to make his wait for the potion bearable.

A glance at Juliette told him that she agreed: it was probably the best option they could give the boy.

“That variation requires…” Severus paused to consider how long it would take, including the required growing time and circumstances – “four months to brew. When do you believe you will be able to begin the brewing preparations?”

The young man’s lack of rejoinder after his earlier rapid responses drew their attention to him to see that he was wearing a wry, half-embarrassed grin.

“Neville?” Juliette asked before her husband had the chance to lose his patience.

“If I didn’t already know about the prophecy, I would still find the timing rather remarkable.”

Neville waited barely a second as she shared a glance with her husband to see if he thought they were interpreting the statement in the same way before he chimed in, “Barely two minutes before Harry summoned me, I finished decanting the finished potion…enough for two recipients.”

Ackkkk. I just took a look around.

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 08:42:49 GMT

A month away from email: Free

The time it will take to read through the 2,375 personal messages I received during the month away: rough guess 20+ hours.

My gratitude that Gmails has automated spam filters and message rules: Timeless.

Hadn't really thought about that or the fact that I would be some 18 updates back on at least one story. 7 or 8 on some others. They're HP for the moment, as I still haven't had much Clex inspiration lately, but have kept writing at some of the ones I hope to update soon. Aside from that, it looks like I'm going to be a bit of a busy girl. Thank Heavens. I cannot even describe how bored I got.

Well, that was an unmitigated "success" - note quotations, note sarcastic eyeroll, note the notes

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 08:28:36 GMT

It sounded simple enough. I went and spoke with someone about how I was feeling last post. Her thoughts: I'm addicted to the net - that it was causing my stress, and that I should try a small experiment: cut out all net activity for a month. Emails. Fics. etc. Everything went on hold.

Well, I thought why not. Nothing else seemed to be improving it. I made sure my work knew my phone and dropped a note to the staff secretary that my email would not be available for awhile. (Not explaining anything else there as you might imagine). Left my hp updates with my co-worker/beta. And simply stopped signing on.

I did things I haven't done in years: went to Starbucks and read; went to the beach, which is only blocks away; ate breakfasts of wine and cheese; changed my sleeping schedule; and discovered that not a bit of it made any difference. I wasn't any more or less anxious for the lack of the net only absolutely, totally, completely, BORED OUT OF MY FRICKIN MIND.

Went back to her: "Oh, I'm sure that it must make some difference. Why not try it another month?"

My thoughts: Why not find something that makes any sort of NOTICEABLE difference and try that for a month. If the net was really the issue, I'd think it might have had some effect at least by week 2. But, nothing. No improvements. No tough spots (i.e. no cravings and teary moments). Nada.

So, while I'm not certain what the next step will be, I guess I am back.

I haven't been avoiding anyone. Really I haven't.... I've been avoiding everyone.

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 22:21:05 GMT

I don't really know what's been going on with me lately or why. Things just haven't been right, felt right, or made sense for months. Outside of a few dribs and drabs of HP, I haven't been able to write much of anything (including my lesson plans and lectures - so I've been practically lecturing straight from the book: something I hate doing).

I'd like to thank everyone who's tried to keep in touch with me. It is deeply appreciated. I do want to get back into the swing of things, but just haven't had anything that I felt was worth saying and a note of well "Hi, I guess I'm still alive sort of" seemed like it wasn't enough content to even spend the time typing. But, Hi, I guess, I'm still alive - sort of. Not that it really feels like it most of the time.

What frustrates me the most is that as hard as I've tried to figure out why, I can't. For the most part things are no better or worse than they usually are. Except for the fact that getting out of bed half the time just doesn't feel worth it, and I can't seem to enjoy the classes I'm teaching which are actually going better than last semester, and the necessity to make pleasant chit chat at work is infuriating me.

Anyway. I just wanted to - what? ... Whine a hello... is the closest description I can think of to this post. Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the new year.

Falling Stars, Part 7

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 20:47:45 GMT

Title: Falling Stars
Rating: PG, Angst
Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

Falling Stars, Part 7

After a second, bizarre but remarkable, display of young man’s healing abilities Juliette watched as her husband and daughter slipped into unconsciousness. The young man that her husband had been referring to as Longbottom stepped forward ran his wand over their throats, temples, hearts, and lower abdomens. Within moments, his tight concerned expression softened and he looked up at her comfortably.

“It looks like they will recover just fine. What do you think, Hare?”

“Yeah, I cleared it all. She had a lot more than he did, but I didn’t let go until I was sure the poison was out of both of their systems. As long as it didn’t cause any other damage, it should be okay.” Mr. Potter turned reassuringly to her and swayed as he nodded.

“Harry!” The young… healer, judging by his familiarity with healing spells and techniques jumped forward and caught his friend.

“Don’t quite feel quite right, Nev.”

“You better take it easy. I don’t think you’ve done two of those in a row before, much less on two people at a time.”

“Yeah… guess so,” he mumbled blearily.

“Think I’ll crash for a while. Kay?”

“Sure, Hare; You do that. I’ll wake you before I go.”

“Mmhmm, Thanks.”

“Mr. Longbottom, can I offer you some tea?” Juliette offered for lack of a better tack to get the conversation back to where she wanted it to go. She had seen Severus’s face when the young man had rapidly assessed the situation, and judging by her husband’s expression, had come up with an answer that she wasn’t entirely comfortable with. While she knew that Severus wasn’t going to press charges against his daughter for the poisoning, Juliette was afraid that the young man would still report the girl, which would undoubtedly lead the Ministry to question the presumed Death Eater attack on Snape Manor.

“Yes, Thank you, Ma’am.”

Turning to the dining table, Juliette paused as she stared at the full tea service that Mr. Potter had set out for her and her husband’s return.

“May I ask you a question, Mr. Longbottom?”

“Neville, if you would, and certainly, I will be happy to answer what ever I can.”

“Thank you, Neville. May I ask why, when your friend had the tea set up out here, did he retire to the kitchen to make himself tea? The pot is clearly charmed to stay warm and he certainly wouldn’t have expected us to sit down for a bite after this.” She waved her hand in a half-circle toward her husband and child to indicate their emergency.

“Oh, well that. We didn’t want the professor to see Harry pouring the poison into his cup. It would have been quite dangerous for his heart rate to speed up and he has a tendency to react strongly to Harry’s penchant for risking his life to save others.”

“H-he took the poison?” Juliette turned back to stare at the boy who was now sprawled across the couch shivering and used a bit of wandless magic to cover him with a wool throw from a nearby chair.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I suppose that I was to… emotional to fully explain earlier. To use one of his ‘bursts’, he has to simulate or duplicate the type of abuse that he experienced that caused those symptoms: to help them breath, I had to fool his body into believing that he was being choked. But, with poison, it’s not quite enough to take him close to being poisoned with similar potions, somehow his magic has to address the exact toxin that was being used. So, to pull it out of their systems, he had to take it himself.”

“I see.” It sounded logical enough if a bit depressingly self-sacrificial. “But, why not just explain that to Severus? He would not have panicked.”

“No, I know that. We’ve seen enough to know that, but Ma’am, the poison used dragon’s blood, and that’s a different matter entirely.”

Her dimming pallor told him that she knew enough about potions that she would understand his explanation.

“Magically, it’s a sentience-sensitive material; or rather, it reacts to the sentience of the person it’s being used on. If the patient knows that it’s being used, that knowledge triggers a currently unexplainable effect, and the effects of the dragon’s blood multiply sometimes as much as ten-fold, depending on what it was blended with. The strongest effects correlate with an individual’s advanced knowledge of the dragon’s blood effects.”

“For Severus, then…”

“The amount of poison that he may have ingested… given a two hour period and a potion master’s knowledge? Yes, it would have been undoubtedly been fatal before we could have counteracted its effects. As it was, I wasn’t certain that he wouldn’t recognize it, but hoped that his concern for …” Longbottom paused to glance over at Celeste with an appraising glance, before he continued: “his daughter? … would distract him from examining it to closely.

“How very Slytherin of you,” Severus rasped archly.

Both Juliette and Neville jumped nervously.

“Professor!” Longbottom exclaimed rushing to her husband’s. “How are you feeling?”

“Considering that I’ve just recovered from dragon’s blood poisoning, remarkably well, but tell me (if you will?) how exactly did get around Potter’s knowledge of the effects?”

“What?!? Harry doesn’t know the effects. He was almost as bad as me in potions, and he’s never really been a Hermione type of student to look outside of the minimum needed to complete an assignment. I’m sure he read about Dragon’s blood for NEWT potions, but that was years ago and he didn’t even pass that.”

Juliette marveled at her husband’s patience; in some ways, he was so different than the brash unforgiving young professor that she had fallen in love with. Their years apart had obviously tempered him while it only seemed to have aged her.

“Professor Longbottom, need I remind you that you are currently the Potions instructor at Hogwarts? Or further, that the sole reason that Mr. Potter did not pass his NEWT exams was yet another unfortunate vision? Or perhaps something more direct to the issue at hand, surely, by this time you have put some thought into who created the inventive crossbow bolts that were used during the surprisingly successful attempt to retrieve us from Bellatrix Lestrange’s hospitality?”

“Dumbledore… I thought Dumbledore.”

Whatever her husband might have said to this was sidetracked by Juliette’s sudden sarcastic comment, “That old man, dear as he was, using crossbow bolts? Ridiculous? Did you even know the man? Certainly, he was an alchemist, but so tradition bound that I don’t imagine that he could have even thought up a combination with a muggle weapon.”

Apparently recognizing the validity of her comment, Longbottom gazed palely at her, unaware that the teacup trembling in his grasp, then flashed an anxious pleading look towards her husband before letting the tea cup slip from his grip and dashing to his friend’s side.

“No, oh no. Harry, wake up. Wake up, Hare. Can you hear me? Come on Hare wake up!”

After almost throwing his wand back and forth across his friends body as he murmured the diagnostic spell, Longbottom hesitated before pulling the wand back to him to read the energy patterns now scrolling across its surface, then steeled himself, read it, and muttered a long virulent stream of biting profanities.

Falling Stars, Part 6

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 20:46:07 GMT

Title: Falling Stars
Rating: PG, Angst
Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

Falling Stars, Part 6

“Celeste!!!” Juliette screamed startling the room as she jumped toward her daughter, grabbed the girl, and shook her fiercely.

“What have you done? Oh, what have you done? What. Did. You. Think. You. Were. Doing.” Each word punctuated a shake. Each shake punctuated her horrified sobs until her daughter finally answered with childlike simplicity.

“I killed off the Snapes, Mom. That’s all. At the manor and here. No more Snapes anywhere. Poof. They’re gone.” Something in her slurred voice sounded off to Severus as he bent over the table gasping at the pain in his stomach.

“Juliette,” he gasped realizing what the child must have done. “Help me.”

When Juliette ran to his side and helped him hold himself up, he promptly stuck his long index finger down his throat forcing himself to vomit. The fluid that returned burned as it was coming up, but he was relieved to see clear traces of the poisonous potion. Grabbing the water from a nearby table, he gulped it as quickly as he could then forced himself to vomit two more times until the fluids ran clear. He may not have gotten it entirely out of his system and the pain might not have lessened, but at least it wouldn’t get as bad as it could.

Before their daughter could resist, he whispered a spell binding her and grabbed another nearby glass of water to quickly wash his hands. Wrapping an arm around her, he pulled her tightly to him, forcing her to bend forward as he ordered his wife to pry her mouth open. Repeating the same procedure, it took six glasses of water before the returned fluids ran clear. By that time, both he and his daughter were having trouble staying on their feet.

As the manager came running out, a livid shade of red, Severus groaned: “We’ve been poisoned. Don’t let anyone touch that.”

The man stumbled to a shuddering halt, staring at Severus and Celeste in dismay.

He gave the man a ragged nod, grabbed the vial, forced himself to stand as straight as he could, pulled both women to him, and clenched for the rose that he’d brought for Juliette - triggering the portkey spell with a softly murmured trigger: “Ellory’s reading room.”

Just as he heard Juliette’s gasp of recognition, the odd hook like sensation caught Severus around the middle and tried to pull him through a straw.

When they arrived in the small sitting room of Spinner’s end, Severus was startled to see the room dimmed, the table set with candles, and warming dishes steaming down the center. Forgetting their situation for the briefest second, Juliette turned to him with amusement raising her eyebrow until she paled at the gray creeping into his skin tone.

“Potter!” Severus called with rasping irritation. “Get her to the couch, Jule. I don’t think either of us can stay standing too long… POTTER!!!”

“Hey, calm down.” A voice called through from the nearby library. I’m sorry if things didn’t go so well, but I was sure that Hermione was right and that you would be bringing her back with you. Anyway…” Potter broke off as he walked into the room and saw Severus leaning heavily on a much smaller woman.

“Professor! Gods what happened?”

“Poisoned.” Severus gasped lifting the vial. “Summon Longbottom… discreetly!”

The boy raised an eyebrow at his caution, but nodded, stepped into an open center of the room, abruptly threw back his sleeve, and grasped a thin bracelet with ivy leaves and vines as links. Whispering a sympathetic charm that would warm its twin, he waited several seconds until his warmed in response then slipped it off, set it on the floor, and cast a cushioning charm over it.

Potter had barely finished when Longbottom port-keyed to the bracelet with a soft thump, landing in a half-kneeling position reminiscent of a novice being conveyed with knighthood. As he rose to his feet, Potter’s softly exclaimed caution, “Nev, we’ve got trouble” seemed almost unnecessary as the young man quickly assessed the situation and asked Severus, “Poison, I take it. Obviously tasteless and odor-free. What was the method and length of the ingestion period?”

“Hot tea and over two hours possibly three.” Severus lifted the vial in a trembling hand.

Although he had grown accustomed to watching Longbottom’s mind at work, Severus was still surprised to see the young man’s eyes narrow as they studied the vial then flick across to his daughter. He’s made the connection that quick. Flashing a look of warning at his student, Severus tried to make clear that he wanted the girl to suffer no ill repercussions.

“Jule, help me down… by Celeste.”

Before they could take two steps, Longbottom, who was already studying the vials contents, snapped off “No”.

“Longbottom!”

“Until we identify the poison, you should remain as upright as possible. Harry, two ice cream slings, please.”

Severus had not even a second to protest as Potter focused on the ceiling for a second then raised both hands and brought them straight down, twisting his pinched fingers as if he was holding an ice cream cone as he finished. As his hands dropped, thin shimmering cords appeared anchored to the ceiling, split then interwove their parts until they narrowed as they reached the floor, looking quite like an ice cream cone – even to Severus’s dry imagination. Potter with a softly murmured mobilicorpus soon had Celeste resting, upright in on sling, and Longbottom was coming him move to the other sling.

“Sir,” Longbottom began in a soft voice that barely carried, surprising Severus with his tact as he asked, “Were you able to … purge … both of your stomachs?”

Severus could only nod as the burning feeling rose again.

Recognizing the professors soft gulping as a sign of discomfort, Longbottom asked worriedly, “Will you need a respiration charm?”

Barely containing a shudder at the memories of being put under that spell previously, Severus hesitated. Madam Pomfrey had repeatedly informed him that no one had difficulties with the respiro animas spells and that he was simply trying to be difficult (as usual – in her opinion); but no matter how he had tried to reconcile himself to the necessity every time it had been needed, Severus found the manner that the spell forced him to breath in rhythmic, deep, sustained breaths that he could not control just as panic inducing as the inability to breathe. Nevertheless, there was nothing to guarantee or even suggest that he wouldn’t need the charm to be used. In fact, if the burning in his throat and esophagus continued, he was fairly certain that his throat would eventually if not more quickly simply close in response, and he would likely suffocate without the spell.
His frustration must have been somewhat apparent – as he soon felt Longbottom’s hand close gently over his shoulder.

“That’s okay, I understand. I happen to hate that one, too, but …” the young man paused glancing over his shoulder at Potter, who nodded grimly, before he looked back and continued softly, “We have another method that we can use.”

“Harry,” Longbottom turned back to his friend and spoke in an equally soft manner that filled Severus and, from the look on her face, Julliet with concern as Longbottom spoke in an almost coaxing manner, “It would be better to do it now before we have multiple symptoms to deal with.”

The sudden pallor that came over Potter’s face disturbed Severus so greatly that he wanted to reject whatever they intended to do, but the poison’s effects were increasing to the point that he very much doubted that he would be able to breath in several minutes.

Curiously distracted, Potter surprised Severus by suddenly pulling out of his over robe, removing his tie, and taking off his outer shirt as well, leaving himself clad in only t-shirt that he wore in place of his under shirt and loose slacks. Catching what must have been a surprised look in his eyes, Potter explained cryptically, “I won’t be able to stand being in anything that feels binding at my throat… afterward.”

Despite his painfully distracting condition, Severus felt his eyebrow skeptically and winced at the pain hiding beneath Potter’s snarky reaction to the shift in his expression, “You’ll understand in a second.”

Gulping nervously, Potter came to stand beside him or rather between him and his daughter, then turned to Longbottom and firmly commented, “Let’s do them both at once, kay?”

It wasn’t quite a command, but they all heard the insistence in the question, even his daughter, who had roused enough to stare at the improperly dressed boy between them.

“Harry, you know that’s not a good idea. It takes a lot to trigger anyway, to hold that long enough to…you shou…”

“Nev. Do it. Even if it does, doing it once is infinitely easier than having to feel that way… and remember … twice.”

Severus wanted to growl his frustration. Their conversation was giving him absolutely no information whatsoever. When Potter laid a hand on his shoulder, he was frustrated enough to pull away, but the reproachful look in both young men’s eyes had him accepting the touch without further complaint.

Although he was beginning to feel as though he was drifting in and out of consciousness, Severus was alert enough to notice the discomfort in Longbottom’s eyes as he approached his friend, raising his hands. For several moments after that, Severus suspected that Longbottom had been subjected to the imperious curse as he watched the often passive man wrapped his hands around Potter’s throat and begin to tighten them in an obvious attempt to strangle his friend. Becoming unable to move under the influence of the poison, the former professor watched in dumb horror as his successor insistently pressed his thumbs into the boy’s throat – quickly and efficiently cutting off both the boy’s airway and critical blood flow. Only Juliette’s startled oath drew his eyes away.

From behind Potter, his wife was prying at Longbottom’s fingers, trying to break their hold. Despite what seemed to be desperately strong efforts on her part, Longbottom’s fingers stayed in place and his eyes studied his friend with a calculating sadness until Potter’s slumped when strength seemed to weaken and his eyes dropped shut. As though he’d been waiting for that specific event, Longbottom cried out, “Harry, do it!” and jerked his hands away.

Then, and Severus was stunned by the feeling that he would never forget the sensation of combined trepidation, fear, worry, and strangely gratitude that flowed through him as he watched it happen, Potter’s magic - in a surge akin to children’s accidental magic – poured through the boy’s hands into both his and his daughter’s body returning their breathing to a relaxed normal state that felt not a bit as if it was being forced. Testing the feeling, he tried to control his own breathing enough to take a simple swallow of air and found that the burn in his throat withdrew lightly as he did – proving to himself at least, despite his surprise, that his breathing had already been affected by the poison.

“Mr. Lo—,” Severus was forced to stop for a moment as he breathed in painfully, under his own control, at the still tight, thought infinitely less painful ache in his throat. When he felt that he had regained enough breath to continue, he did so carefully: “explain.”

“Harry?” Longbottom asked hesitantly.

A flick of the fingers was the only response Potter made to Longbottom, but it seemed to be enough because the new potions professor gave his friend an almost embarrassingly soft clap on the shoulder and sent him into the kitchen to get some tea. Before Severus could ask again, Longbottom forestalled him: “Just a minute, let me finish closing these spells off before Harry comes back with the tea, then I’ll explain.”

Longbottom’s odd wording took him a bit by surprise, but Severus could somehow only wonder about their bizarre actions and its strange result. Waiting as Longbottom worked with the slings and cast what sounded like odd stabilizing and recovery, Severus paused to study his daughter, who had also been heavily focused on Potter and who was now staring toward the kitchen door that the young man had disappeared into.

“The bastard…” Longbottom’s viciously growled curse broke through his strange distraction as the young man broke of and began again, “the - - muggle that raised Harry never gave him much of any thing. The stingy old arse, he only reluctantly gave Harry enough to eat, and didn’t give a whit at all if Harry had eaten enough to have the strength to do the ‘chores’ that he’d been given – as long as he had a reason to punish Harry for every chore he couldn’t do.”

The young professor had to break off for a moment to slow his breathing and get his anger back under control. It was rather startling for Severus to watch, even during the war, Longbottom had never seemed as ready to commit violence as he did at that moment.

“He probably didn’t figure that Harry would get anything from it, but the bastard actually ended up giving Harry a coupl’a gifts on account of it. Not that he’d of known or would have had any reason to expect it when he was thrashin’ Harry within an inch a his life that he’d make Harry’s magic act that way. Don’t really think a wizard would of much expected it either, but who knows how much of it had to do with the stuff in the prophecy. Anyway,” he paused turning back to face them with a grim joyless smile on his face, “as it turns out, his survival instinct kicked in during those punishments giving him the ability to do bursts of almost controlled accidental magic that counteract the symptoms of abuse that he’d received then, and he can share these bursts with others, too. Only problem is that he can’t call them up on his own. They have to be triggered by simulating or duplicating the abuse.”

Severus was stunned at the implications. From the rather dismal occulmency lessons, he had been well aware that the boy had been neglected and berated, but he had never seen evidence of abuse to the extent that it would cause the results that Longbottom was suggesting. Despite the urgency of their situation, Severus could not help but wonder about the extent of Potter’s ‘gifts’ and was grateful to Jule when she asked, “what else can he do?”

“I’ll show you.” Harry rasped harshly, from the doorway, before tipping back his teacup and finishing it the last dreg. He returned to the dining table and set the teacup and saucer before stepping back between Severus and Celleste. Just as Severus felt Potter’s shoulder, he noticed the almost empty vial that rattled in the saucer as it settled. Over half of the remaining poison was gone and the dregs of Potter’s tea had a suspicious glint.

Cursed, Part 4

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 20:43:44 GMT

Title: Cursed, Part 4
Fandom: Stargate 1
Warnings: R for violence and disturbing content. AU. H/C Implied child molestation (of Daniel) but no graphic depictions events that occured well prior to the adult Jack/Daniel relationship. This update is a wee bit od for me, and I'm not really certain where it came from, but...

Summary: Daniel and Jack meet earlier than expected- over and over; but, no matter how much Jack tries help him heal, Daniel seems cursed and cares about Jack too much to let him share the curse.

Cursed, Part 4

"Hi Major," Mrs. Cable, Daniel's latest foster mother greeted Jack through the screen door as she passed.

"Come in."

"Thanks, Jan." Jack nodded as he opened the door. He'd given up trying to get her to call him 'Jack', when he began to agree with Daniel that the Cables were likely to be another temporary foster placement.

It wasn't that there was anything inherently wrong with Staff Sergeant Cable or his wife. Both seemed to be truly good people and had been very kind to Daniel. But, O'Neill was beginning to see some of the same tensions building that he had seen eventually dissolve the three previous foster placements that Daniel had been placed in since coming out of McDill's medical center.

Although, by all accounts, Daniel was never difficult, rebellious, or disrespectful, he also never seemed able to integrate himself into the family structure he was being offered. The most common complaint that Jack had heard, in his semi-official role as a big brother, was that Daniel never seemed to relax or even minimally attempt to develop a relationship with them. Add to that the frequent, intense nightmares that Daniel refused to discuss, even with his therapist; a lack of common interests; and Daniel's preference to isolate himself in his room to study instead of participating in their staged family activities.

"… coffee?" Jan's amused voice cut through his thoughts.

"What? I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"Someone just… uh… called us on the radio, Jack." Daniel's dry hoarse voice explained.

"What?!?" Wiping the trails of sweat from his brow, Jack glanced around trying to reassert reality, but not entirely certain whether the miles of empty grey-blue sky or the Cable's kitchen represented reality. But, it was always safest to assume the worst so…

"Daniel?" Jack asked and found the worst scenario confirmed by the pain of even trying to get that short question out.

"Someone just called over the radio, but I didn't know what to say."

"Someone?" Jack chewed the inside edge of his lip to get some moisture into his parched mouth.

"I-i-i think it was an Am-mer-ican." Daniel's pained whisper sounded excited despite its strident tone.

"Lima 39, Lima 39, identify yourself." The radio crackled.

"There! There it is!"

"Okay, calm down." Jack grinned, then grimaced as his split lip pulled painfully. "We're not out of the woods yet."

Daniel went silent immediately as Jack answered, "Lima 39 to base, put an adult on the phone."

"Identify yourself, Lima 39." A tense voice commanded.

"Lima 39 to base, tell the adults that you've got a cross-dresser on the line, who needs to talk to your old man quick." Jack fell into the quick jargon that most pilots could fall back into even decades after being in-service.

"I'll put the old man on as soon as you identify yourself, Lima 39."

"Base, I'm a snake-eater tired off playing Papa Whiskey in this sandbox. Do you copy?" Get us the f@#k out of this eff-ing sandbox if you please. He thought silently, censoring his words even though he knew that Daniel wouldn’t hear them.

"Lima 39, what's your bat decoder number?"

"One-whiskey, Missouri, Tango seven–seven."

"Copy that, Lima." The radio operator's voice sounded relieved.
“Son, those references are six months off.”

“Yes, Sir,” Jack answered quickly, suspecting from the change in the operator’s voice that he was already speaking with one of the officers. “I was on a rcn hop and ended up sleeping in-country rent-free.”

You’re telling me? I was in this hell hole every minute of them: being starved, having the shit beat out of me, and getting my ass saved by a kid no less… a kid, who should have been waiting at home for adoption papers to go through, and you complain about the freaking decoder numbers being six months old. Jack grimaced but held back on the comments that he really wanted to make.

“Sorry to hear that son, what was your hop number?”

“Thirty. Missouri. India. Romeo. Zulu.”

“Confirmed.” The voice answered as it took on a clear note of authority.

Relaxing slightly, Jack asked, “You’re the old man?”

“As old as they get around here? How can we assist?”

“Sir, I’m flat-hatting a borrowed mud-mover with a cold nose, no flips, no dash ten, and a 14 year-old John Wayne on board.”

“Repeat that Lima, you have a ‘what’ on board?”

"I just mentioned that Daniel is still upstairs finishing his homework. Would you care for some coffee?"

If it weren't for the obvious, if forced courtesy in her tone, Jack might have refused, but he could tell she had something more in mind than a congenial chat so agreed. As soon as they were seated, coffees in hand, Jack broached the discussion with an obvious probe: "Homework? Isn't it a bit unusual for him not to have his homework done before the week begins?"

Realizing that Jack wasn't deceived, Jan admitted, "actually, I asked him to start on his homework… for two weeks from now… So we could talk."

“Jack!” Daniel’s hoarse cry brought him back to the present.

“Lima, Lima, you are still on scopes. Give us your status.”

“Half-way to Kansas, Sir.” Jack answered, worriedly, letting them know that there was an increasing probability of him making a fatal mistake. He couldn’t keep having these flashes or… well it never did any good to think about ‘or’.

“Copy” the officer responded gravely, “Lima, say again, what did you have on board?”

“A civilian, Sir. Family, 14 years old.” Jack said bluntly wanting to be sure that he got that across before he phased out again and took them down. The recovery team had to know that they needed to look for two people and one was a kid.

The radio went silent as Jack looked back up at Jan who was pouring him a second coffee.

"What's on your mind?" Jack asked, even though he was certain that he knew what it would be based on his past experience. Six months in seemed about the time when Daniel's other foster parent's began to feel comfortable enough with the situation to openly resent Jack's relationship with Daniel.

After Daniel had admitted to his therapist that he only felt safe around Jack, the therapist had suggested to Colonel Wing, Jack's commanding officer, that allowing Jack to act as a proxy big brother would be better for Daniel's recovery. The Colonel, hoped to garner some good press for McDill through well staged photo ops of Daniel and his 'rescuer' was only to happy to jump on the idea. The Colonel had practically ordered Jack to take Daniel out for public picnics, teach him how to roller blade and ice skate, and even take language classes with the boy when he discovered how proficient Daniel was in foreign languages.

Ironically, it was the very same language courses that resulted in him being selected for the reconnaissance mission.

Clear Conscience, Part 11

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 20:32:36 GMT

If you feel like you're not quite certain what's going on, up to this point: congratulations – you're right where you're supposed to be, no one in the story really has tied things together yet. But, here's where things should start to make sense.

Due to it's size, I've had to cut it into two parts.

Title: Clear Conscience
In series: Part 11
Rating: PG 13, AU after OOTP, H/C
Summary: The Dursley's abused Harry, Voldemort tortured him, but Dumbledore destroyed him, and Severus Snape wants to save him?

Part 11

Alastor, quite expectedly, demanded to go through the floo first, which Albus only reluctantly agreed because he wanted to determine absolutely whether Severus could be alive.

"Elspeth, is there even the slimmest possibility that Severus survived?"

The master healer's lips thinned as she studied his hopeful expression.

"Hoping for yet another last minute reprieve?" Elspeth's voice was as caustic for its lack of emotion as her slap had been for the reverse.

The quiet anticipation in his posture and expression hurt her almost as much as the truth that she couldn't spare him from.

"But, we three shall have no reprieve, Grandfather. Hagrid might have survived giving that much of his heart's blood and magic; though even that's incredibly unlikely, and would have required numerous doses of blood replenisher which are ineffective on Severus – due to his dark mark." Elspeth turned her eyes sadly to her lab wondering if her latest experiment might have borne fruit too late.

But setting the thought aside, she continued almost casually, "And so, you also will outlive yet another descendant. For I will not allow myself to be completely turned nor seek out another dark heart to keep me fed and forestall the change. And my love faced his impending death, not knowing for certain whether I had ever loved him fully enough to choose him over you, yet still spending his last moments to create a gift of love that will forestall my starvation for at least a year."

"Dear Child, no matter what words passed between you when you last spoke, you cannot be certain that those would have been his last thoughts. And, there is another dark heart already available, whom I am certain will consent to help you survive."

"I can and do know exactly that. It was true, years ago, that I hadn't the ability to read another's thoughts, dreams, and fears from that person's blood, but years of surviving on Severoos's weekly gifts have only slowed but not stopped my slide into the dark clan. Now, I can do a great many more things that would meet with the Ministry's disapproval than I could when you pushed the Wizengamot into exempting me from the strictures binding vampires. Were they to test me again, I am quite certain that the vote would not go in my favor even without Fudge's bumbling interference."

Shaking his head grimly, at her words, he asked, "Weekly? I am certain that I was very clear about the dangers of becoming too reliant on regular feedings."

"Yes, Grandfather, you were very clear in proclaiming what we were capable of without ever truly trying to understand what he was capable of."

"Elspeth, I understand a great deal more than you – what Severus was capable of. Indeed, I have been the one to order or sanction a large share of it."

"And, you honestly believe that ordering it equates to understanding it?"

"No, but it gives me a perspective that you do not have."

"Have you forgotten what I told you barely seconds ago? Or, do you find it too uncomfortable to know that I was able to read Severoos's frustration that those supporting you have now been exposed to Fudge and the Death Eaters (by any Hogwart's student with even a remotely gossiping Aunt), or his irritation that yet again the wizarding world were forcing their hopes onto a child that they seemed unwilling to even protect from dangers that they are far better trained to face, and his hurt at your, yet again, refusal to consider his warnings?

Or, perhaps, the fact that I could read those last thoughts out of his last gift of blood and magic, his last dark heart, as easily as if I were a fully turned vampire is simply one of those inconvenient truths that you would like to forget? Like the fact that, despite all of his prophesied powers and potential, Harry Potter is little more than an abused child, and yet year-after-year, you send him back to his atrocious aunt and her feeble excuse for a family."

Elspeth paused in her accusation to gauge his response, hoping unusually that her husband was right in his claim that her childhood belief of her grandfather's omniscience was in this case doing a disservice to the older man. But, when he did not even blink an eye or hesitate in his inadequate defense that "sometimes we must sacrifice comfort for survival," she knew that she had been correct. Albus had known that the boy had been abused.

"Oh? And, is it merely comfort that's being sacrificed by leaving Draco with a psychotic sadist? True, it would not have been safe for Sevaroos to take custody of his son, but in his first year, Madam Pomfrey contacted St. Mungo's for a medical history because she suspected abuse. As headmaster, you could have used her information to press for the boy to become a Ministry ward: magically monitored and protected from Lucius's treatment while remaining in the man's house, without ever drawing Severoos into the situation or revealing his concealed loyalties."

Her grandfather's eyes flashed as she finished, but his response was delayed by a trill of phoenix song floating through the open floo connection.

"That will be Alastor, then." Albus said quietly then turned back to her.

"He really should not have burdened you with these concerns," her grandfather chastised.

"The truth is only a burden if you fail to act appropriately, Grandfather. But if you find them too much of a burden, perhaps you should wake up your little pet, Lockhart, and invite him to lunch."

Her grandfather smiled with false confusion as he demurred, "he was a poor hiring choice."

"Oh. Are you hiring order members now? Don't insult our intelligence or our marriage. Did you truly think that I would not have alerted Severoos to the fact that outside of his skill with memory charms, my old classmate was a fraud and a charlatan? That he was entirely incompetent and otherwise useless to the order? Why did you suppose that Severoos always avoided the multitude of Gilderoy's invitations to tea and rejected your frequent encouragements to make the new DADA instructor welcome? "

For the first time, Albus's eyes recovered a trace of their normal humor, as he answered, "In truth, I suspected the man's rather foppish persona turned the boy off."

"Of course, my love was never one to suffer fools lightly, and I am even less inclined than he. To that end, while I'm certain my parents will welcome you at my funeral, until that time, do me the favor of staying away."

Albus's shocked "Child, no…" faded into silence as studied her face before he nodded then turned to the floo.

***

Wiping his eyes blearily, Draco … No. He reminded himself was going to be Christopher from now on, and he was going to take his father's advice – his real father's advice. He was going to do whatever it took to stay with the only person in his life who had ever shown him constancy and affection. The only person, whom he had ever truly admired and hoped to be like.

He hesitated to stop the gentle motion of Severus's hand stroking from his crown to the back of his neck, but he wanted to look his father in the face and tell him how he felt. Tell him that he loved him. Gently wrapped his fingers through the hand and started to lift it as he turned his head. Halfway through the motion, he realized that something was dreadfully wrong. His father's skin was cold and clammy, and his fingers trembled, very lightly, but in a man who's career truly rested in the steadiness of his hands and his ability to express the most minute control over his touch sufficient even to flawlessly measuring seven micro-particles of Cornish pixie dander with a pinch and roll of his finger tips... such trembling was alarming.

"Father?" Dra—Christopher asked nervously.

"Ch-rissss…" Severus's strength to speak ended in a weakened hiss and Christopher had to lean in closely to barely hear a breathed, "I'm sorry."

To many clues that he had not taken the time to digest before fell into place for Christopher, and he immediately understood why his father was apologizing. Poppy's claims that the Professor having been attacked in his own quarters, the confused/confounded looks on the mediwitch and healer's faces, the unforgivable curse thrown at them but that unfamiliar healer, and the book's charm that had allowed him to read it even though it was his father's younger voice had expressed his regret at not being able to claim his son while he lived: they all added up into a single convincing conviction. His father was dying.

"No!" He shrieked as he jumped to his feet. "No! No! No!"

Standing, he could see his Severus's already bloodless, pale complexion and knew that his father didn't have long to live.

"Hold on! Hold On!" Christopher had no idea and desperately wanted to ask him what to do, but couldn't bear the thought of wasting the last of his father's strengths in trying to save him.

"Stay with me!" He demanded as he looked around for some idea of what he could do.

His eyes landed on Harry.

***

Albus blinked tears from his eyes as he stared down at Madam Pomfrey. Poppy and Minerva had been the only remaining instructors from before he began his tenure as Hogwarts Headmaster. He had hoped during the long anxious nights since Voldemort's that both of the witches would survive him and had carefully engineered their services to the school and to the order, so that it kept them within Hogwart's protective wards and as far away from harm as possible.

Despite his most carefully laid plans; however, Minerva was still slowly recovering from last year's vicious attack occurring on school grounds, and Poppy… Poppy would never recover. Stroking a finger over her peacefully stern face, Albus saw instead the glowing features of the young mediwitch as she had looked the night that she had thrown an impromptu staff party the night Headmaster Diggle had announced that he was stepping down. No one knew who the board of Govenors was going to appoint as the new headmaster and the tension had been growing throughout the week as various professors tried to vie for the position. Finally, Poppy had, had enough of the biting comments and surly attitude of some of the instructors who felt, for one reason or other, that they were out of in the running, and let it be known that she was going to "Pop" out and get as many bottles of fire whiskey as she could afford and that anyone who could drop the attitude could share a bottle with her.

A hand on his shoulder pulled Albus from his memory of her returning through the great hall, laughing as she juggled close to twenty bottles of fire whiskey. Glancing up, he nodded to Alastor, then reached out and drew the sheet up to cover her face.

"What happened?"

"It's a bit odd if you ask me, and I'm beginning to wonder if your girl doesn’t have it right about Snape being an imposter. From what everybody's saying, he was acting right odd when he woke up and didn't seem to recognize folks. Next thing people knew, he was jumpin' over the hospital bed and grabbin' Potter up. Poppy and the others tried to get him to put the boy back down and let them treat him, but he wasn't listening. One of the ministry's healer's saw him grabbing for a port key and tried to stop him from taking Potter out of here, but jumped the gun and used the Avada Kedavra. Sad thing is, Poppy must have been imperious'd, and before anyone saw what the healer was about, she'd thrown herself in front of it. There just wasn't time for the healer couldn't counter it."

"How does he justify using an unforgivable curse in the hospital wing of a school?" The anger in the Headmaster's voice was threatening even to Mad Eye movie himself.

Clear Conscience, Part 12

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 20:29:03 GMT

Title: Clear Conscience
In series: Part 12
Rating: PG 13, AU after OOTP, H/C
Summary: The Dursley's abused Harry, Voldemort tortured him, but it was Dumbledore who destroyed him, and Severus Snape who saves him?

Part 12

Fisting Harry's robes, Christopher shook him violently. The prat was faking it out of spite and just letting his father die because Severus hadn't simpered and fawned like the rest.

"Harry Fucking Potter, I know you're faking it. I heard Madam Pomfrey. She said that she'd healed you. There's no fucking excuse for you to just lay there and let Severus die. So, you can just drop the farce and answer me.

Damn it. You can't just let him die. Don't let him die. No matter how much you hate him. You can't … you just can't let him die. Please Harry. He's my father. Don't let him die." Christopher was bitterly aware that he had slipped into begging, but for Severus he would have been willing to sacrifice his pride even if he had never learned that the man was his father.

"Stop. Being. Such. An. Arrogant. Prick. And. Help. Him." Christopher punctuated each word with a stiff shake that had Harry's head flipping back and forth like a crucio'd house elf.

"You. Petty. Prat. You're. Supposed. To. Be. A. Bloody. Fucking. Gryffin…" Christopher choked as the last shake forced him to meet Harry's eyes and find emptiness instead of the malice and smugness that he'd expected to find there.

"…dor." He finished quietly as he laid Harry back as gently as he could.

He had been avoiding looking into the precious prat's eyes, knowing that he would kill the Gryffindor champion if he saw even a trace of laughter in the other boy's eyes as he got whatever revenge he thought was owed from Christopher and Severus both in one full sweep by forcing him to watch his new-found father die. Now, he wondered, with a surge of fear, whether that avoidance had cost him everything, by allowing him to negligently shake his rival so hard that he had cause the Gryffindor's current state.

Christopher glanced around, suddenly realizing that he entirely alone … and terrified. Panic started building behind his breast bone as the reality of his situation sunk in. He was alone for the first time in his life: without teachers, without friends, classmates, or even Narcissa and Lucius – though they did little to intervene in his problems unless they were problems that the two had ordered him to create in the first place. He had two lives hanging over his head, and he didn't even have his fath… Lucius's cowering, cow-towing, constantly sniveling house elves.

House Elves!

Christopher had assumed that if anyone were home, they would have come in when he'd had his blow off, but he hadn't thought of house elves. Surely if his father had been allowed to link a port key to the home, its house elves would be able to help.

"Servents! House Elves! Ghosts! Is anyone here?" Christopher called hopefully. "Please anyone? Help! There are injured wizards here."

The wake of empty silence crashed in on him bringing on even greater fears. As much as he wanted to help Severus, he really had no idea where he was, no idea whether it would be safe for him to port key back to Hogwarts when the aurors had already tried to kill Severus, and St. Mungo's was just as uncertain when the ministry kept a team of aurors on duty at Mungo's. He couldn't consistently apparate on his own, and certainly not well enough to carry a passenger with him much less two. And even if he tried to carry a second, he couldn't leave Potter, or he and his father were finished. Nor could he leave his father alone here, when he didn't know the general location so that he could apparate back.

The urge to scream his frustration was overwhelming and with out thinking about why he did, Christopher threw his head back and screamed, "Dobby!"

Immediately, the small house elf popped into view, barely a foot from him and impulsively threw his arms tightly around Christopher's waist.

"Dobby is so happy for Master Draco, Sir. Dobby is so happy that he has finally told you. Now Dobby can work for Master Snape and make sure that Roo and Robin are happy again, and no one will ever hurt Dobby's Masters again."

Dobby's overjoyed, enthusiastic hopes for his and his father's happiness was so unexpected and heartwarming that it broke completely through Christopher's fears. Wrapping his arms around the little creature, Christopher hugged it tight, crying: "Oh, thank you, thank you for coming. I was so, so afraid. We need your help. Severus is dying. He's hurt and dying. Can you help him? Please Dobby…" Christopher implored to the house elf, who was suddenly ashen white with panic.

"Master Roo? Master Roo is dying. This is not good. Master Roo must not die."

Despite the oddity of hearing his father called by such an odd name, the fierce certainty in the normally timorous house elf's voice calmed Christopher- who still remembered how strong Dobby's magic was from the all to brief time that Dobby took care of him in the nursery before Lucius had recognized the unusual house elf's power and took the elf for his own use. Grabbing Dobby by his tiny shoulders, Christopher gently turned the elf to face his father.

"Oh…. Oh, Master, No! No! No!" Dobby cried in distress as he ran over to the potions master and clambered up the wizard's collapsed form. Dobby's tiny palms pressed into the potion master's chest as he softly muttered elvin spells so powerful that they had to be said out loud over multiple repetitions, unlike the majority of house elves' magics that were performed immediately as soundless, wandless spells.

As the incantation took on a sing-song chanting quality, Christopher felt the magical wards tighten around them becoming felt as a physical force that swept towards his father like the waves of a whirlpool. Continuing to tighten and tighten, it seemed to pierce their pores and flow out into their veins in a flare of liquid warmth that coursed through their system, touched every cell before finding its exit once again through their pores. As the little house elf continued to mutter, the ward's energy ebbed and flowed, manifesting more easily each time and flowing through their pores as easily as a breeze through slotted window screens.

Finally, Dobby pulled his hands away and studied the older wizard, who was now clearly coated in a glimmering glaze of golden energy.

"Wow!" Christopher murmured on an awed breath, "Dobby, that's brilliant!"

"Sir, does Master…" Dobby paused hesitantly until the boy realize why he had and supplied: "Christopher, if you please."

"Does Master Christopher recognize this?"

"I think so, it's… is it, maybe a ward wrap? Where a location's wards are integrated with the magical energies of a rightful protectee of that location to prevent the protectee from being injured?"

It was almost difficult for Christopher to finish his answer as Dobby began nodding frantically and clapping his hands.

"Oh, very, very good, Master Christopher. Very, very good. That's it. That's it exactly. Very smart, Master. Most grown up wizards would not see it."

Stunned by Dobby's enthusiasm, Christopher couldn't help but beam at the praise, even as a question came to mind; "But, I thought that the knowledge of how to do that spell was lost."

"Oh, yes. Yes. That is the perfect word. A things lost if no one knows where to look. The spell's lost because wizards forgot where to look for it. Don't know any more. Don't remember anymore that it's elf magics. We, elfs, can still do it, but only for Masters, who have cared for us and we care for. Wards are smart, very smart. They willn't protect someone who doesn't deserve protecting."

A flash of shame swept through Christopher as he thought back to how he'd treated Dobby and his… the Malfoy's house elves. He was glad that his father could be protected by the ward wrap, but was somehow still sad that he'd probably destroyed his own chances to be cared for in the same way. Dobby's fingers suddenly intertwined with his and pulled him away from the couch where his father seemed to be resting more easily.

"Dobby? What are you doing?"

"Master, look." Dobby pointed to a reflecting glass sitting in a small curved hutch.

"What is it?" Christopher leaned in to see what was so important. His mother had a reflecting glass that she often used for … Thoughts of his mother's scrying glass slipped completely from his mind as he bent close enough to see a shimmering, glow of golden energy emanating like an aura from every area and angle that the glass allowed him to see.

"But… Dobby?" Christopher's voice sounded stunned. "How? Why?"

"Dobby will always remember the little boy who sat in Dobby's lap and tried to use his apple sauce as pain potion to heal the hurts on Dobby's hands."

The little house elf's voice grew soft and solemn as he remembered the crystal tears that the toddler had already learned to hold in, but which laid thick on his lashes as he saw the wounds Lucius had inflicted.

"Oh…" Somehow, Christopher wasn't entirely relieved and turned to wrap his arms around the little creature to hug him as gently as possible as he apologized, "I'm sorry I was such a git. I really am. Thank you for curing my father…" Christopher paused wondering if he would ever call Severus his dad.

"No, Sir. Master Christopher can not thank Dobby. He has not cured Master Roo, only stopped death. Dobby is not a healer. But, the wards will stop death so Master Christopher can bring a healer. Please hurry, Master Christopher."

Christopher's face fell suddenly. Dobby had gained them needed time, but Christopher still had no idea how to use it best to save his father.

"I can't Dobby. I don't know where we are, or who we can trust at St. Mungos. Can you bring someone here?"

The house elf started wringing his hands frantically.

"Oh no, Sir. Dobby is bound by strong magics; he can not bring wizards here or tell them where it is, or do anything that would help them finds it. Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear."

“Merlin! What are we going to do, Dobby? I don’t know what to do.”

The house elf wrung his hands as he paced in anxious circles around his younger master, trying to figure out a soft point in the magics. There weren’t many, but… there was… there was one, if Master Christopher could stand it. Almost reluctantly, he reached up to clasp the boy's had and asked softly, "Master Christopher, where is Master Harry Potter, Sir?"

Falling Stars, Part 5

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 17:14:11 GMT

Title: Falling Stars
Rating: PG, Angst
Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

Falling Stars, Part 5

“And you say that he was willing to do that?” Juliette stared at Severus with a look that was equal parts irritation, mystification, and sadness.

“He was willing to simply throw his life away on a single interpretation of a prophesy? How dim is this child?”

Chuckling at her mildly irreverent wit and amused that she’d make a comment like that about the cherished boy-who-lived, Severus stared at his diminutive wife, feeling somehow relieved that she had not falsely improved her appearance in the intervening years. The early gray that dimmed her once ebony hair felt familiar to him as though he had been with her to watch each hair turn. It mattered not that crows feet and age spots finely decorated the skin beneath her eyes; he still found her handsome. The sharpness in her eyes had not faded a twinkle, though it did have a taint of worry and sadness. The creases in her forehead, too, were new and spoke of worries and stresses that he would ask her to share if she could come to terms with how their life would have to be if she joined him in his new duty.

A life on the run was what he and Potter most likely faced, at least until Minister Fudge was removed from office… and from power. In truth, the boy –when they spoke that morning- seemed ready to thank him and go off on his own- to live as a hermit in the forbidden forest until the prophesy was no longer a threat. It had taken Severus nearly two hours to be certain that he had finally and fully convinced the boy that the only way past the prophesy was through it, which meant living under Severus’s protection.

“It is not actually matter of intelligence: he’s simply a Gryffindor.” he answered smirking comfortably as he watched the humor spark in her steel grey eyes.

“Oh, Merlin, No. A Gryffindor. What a burden.” When her hand came up to dramatically cover her face, Severus’s throat suddenly tightened with anger.

“Juliette?” he choked out, as he pulled her hand down and traced a trembling finger down a long jagged curse scar that ran between the tips of her fingers down the back of her palm, and across her wrist. “H-h-how did you come by this?”

Whoever had cursed his wife was going to suffer years of misery.

“It wasn’t Alfred… was it? I have known him to be cruel. But, you are of pure-blood; I wouldn’t have sent you to him otherwise. I was sure that he would not dare.”

“No, Severus, it was not your cousin, but one of his guests.”

“Who was it? How dare anyone hurt you? You were his guest. My wife. Family. Why didn’t he defend you?”

Alfred should have known his duties and protected her with his very life. She was his family. Irrational anger aimed both at Alfred and at his guest surged through Sevrus, nearly overwhelming his self-restraint, and - if it were not for his duties to Potter- he would have immediately apparated to his cousin’s manor to take the man to task. It was absolutely unthinkable that a guest should distress a family member of the host, much less actually harm one – not matter what the provocation. His hand ached to do the small jerk that would pull his wand from its wrist sheath. His mind coursed with numerous curses that could be used to take appropriate revenge, and …

The almost ice-cold touch of her palm on his cheek brought him out of his rage.

“Severus, don’t. There is something much more important that you can do for me than get revenge.”

“What?” he quickly suppressed his rage – willing to give any reparation she asked for to compensate for his not being there to protect her much less sending her there in the first place.

“Forgive me.”

“Miss Granger said that you claimed to want my forgiveness, but I know of no reason why you should feel the need to ask for it. Even if there were another – it has been seven years since we even wrote to each other. I have not expected that you would stay unattached.”

“No!” She answered sharply. “No, that I would not do. Anyway, you should know that I am not well-suited for other men. They want delicate creatures to hang off their arms and coo at there inanities. No that is not it, but Severus, you might consider it worse.”

Startled by the sudden upsurge of relief at her comment, he studied her carefully, wondering what she might consider worse.

“Tell me.” He grimaced at how tense his voice sounded.

“Do you remember the winter that we went to Dover? Six months before the Potters were murdered?”

Severus nodded cautiously. Merlin, but Dover was haunting him this week.

“Do you remember that there was something that I wished to tell you?”

Thinking back, Severus wasn’t sure that he did, but he did remember there being an odd sort of urgency to her behavior.

“And the months following? When I was hiding here in Hastings? You had forbidden me to contact you because you were afraid that I could be used against you?”

“No, that wasn’t precisely it; I feared more that you could have been hurt if someone tried to – not that you could be. Juliette, I would have then and still would exchange my life for yours.”

The anguish and pain in her eyes shocked Severus thoroughly, despite her lightly worded response: “Ayhhh, your Gryffindor is already mellowing you – such melodrama, such maudlin thoughts.”

“Juliette…”

“No, let me speak. Severus, when we met in Dover, I had asked you to come so that I could tell you that I was five months pregnant with our child. A daughter. Three months later, she was premature and the healers weren’t certain if either of us would survive because of a bleeding condition that I’ve carried from my mother’s side. By the time we were released, the Potters had been killed; you had been picked up by the ministry and were going to be tried in a few months time; and anyone with any relation or association to a perceived or suspected death eater was being harassed both officially and unofficially. Severus, I couldn’t cope with it all. I let my sister talk me into giving Celeste to her to raise. “

“Then, after you were freed, you convinced me that it wasn’t safe for you to acknowledge our marriage, yet, so I kept it from you. I was afraid that you would want to take her to Hogwarts and raise there, so that you could keep an eye on her and protect her. For all your many complaints against Gryffindors, there are times when you suffer from some of the same protective urges as they do. You do! In any event, I have never felt that Hogwarts was as safe as you seemed to believe. That’s why I turned you down in Dover. To me, having Professor Dumbledore there just made it the ultimate target. When your Gryffindor finally showed up, I was proven right a couple of times over. Then seven years ago, he came back and you sent me to your cousin for protection. Against Mariana’s judgment, I decided to take her with me.”

By the time that Severus had gotten over his shock, he was almost prepared to see the blaze of pain that crossed her face. Something had happened, and somehow, he knew that it had had to do with the curse scar. When she stayed silent, either expecting his condemnation, or unable to move forward without his help, he whispered softly: “I rarely find myself in the position of agreeing with Miss Granger and –in fact- find it almost distasteful to do, but in this one instance, I must say that she was entirely correct in her assurances. Juliette, do you really believe that I would have wanted our child to suffer like that? To have her come to a school where I was hated and she would probably have found it impossible to have friends? To have her made an open target to both sides? But, your right, I would have demanded that you bring her to me, to Hogwarts for I knew of no place safer. Your decision was well made, and needs no forgiveness. You need no forgiveness.”

“Oh, oh…oh.” She swallowed fiercely. “I do though, I – Severus – I made a mistake. A horrible mistake. I never told her. I never wanted her to know how he was, how prejudiced he was. I wanted her to grow up happy – with your family. The were the only extension of you she had, so I never told her. I never told her.”

“Told her what?” Severus coaxed his normally self-contained wife. To anyone else in the room, she would have seemed supremely composed, possibly stately. But, the hand Severus was holding was trembling so violently that he had to wrap in both of his. Her eyes were blinking rapidly with unshed tears, and her lips were pressed so tightly that he almost had to wonder if she was holding back a hiss of pain.

“Tell me, Juliette.” He commanded softly. “Tell me.”

“How they were. How they viewed muggles.”

Severus hadn’t realized that he had caught his breath until a slight buzzing in his ears reminded him that she hadn’t spoken in close to a minute. He had to shake his head to clear it, so he could understand. She had not told her daughter how prejudiced his family could be. In itself, that did not sound like a mistake that she would need forgiveness for unless…

“Juliette? What happened? Please... tell me what happened. Is she alright?”

His cousin had stepped aside and chosen not to defend his wife… and possibly his daughter. Severus knew of only one reason that he would, but his wife seemed beyond confirming it with her iron dark curls slowly dropping to cover her wrinkled face as it sunk into age-speckled hands – as though doing so could hide her from events that had already happened. But, in reality, he knew what happened. He knew from his own life. From his mother’s life. From his family’s treatment of her.

“She fell in love … with a muggle.” He stated, not needing to ask it as a question. The simplicity of his statement as well as the accuracy seemed to be enough to get her started again as she nodded.

“They killed him when they found out. Your cousin’s son and one of their guests. ‘Before something untoward happened.’ They said. But, she was… she was already. They would have had a son.” Her resolve finally broke and wells of tears poured down her cheeks.

Looking at her hand again, he knew the rest, but it burned in his throat until he said it.

“They cursed her, didn’t they?”

“Over and over, cruciatis, sectumsempra, agnio animus, reducto, but the cruciatis the most. Over and over again.” She continued to upset to recognize his flinch at hearing that one of the spells they had used was one that he had created. “Until she nearly died, too.”

“Where is she?” He could barely speak through the rage and torment ripping through his chest. When she suddenly stilled and looked up at him with something that was almost fear, Severus felt his heart plummet. For brief seconds, he had believed that was the worst of it.

“She… when she… I let them think that she had died. I had taken her to a healer, who said that she would protect Celeste until I could find better, safer accommodations for her, so I let your cousin think she was dead. Severus, I couldn’t send her back to my sister. Our families know each other two well. They would have known that she was still alive and could go to the ministry. So, I had to look for someplace else. I had to go, but … while- while I was away. She did something horrible. Severus, she poisoned them. She paid a serving girl that they had been abusing to let her into the manor, and she poisoned them. When I got back, I did the only thing I could think of to cover it up. I cast the dark mark in above the manor, set it on fire, and ran with her. The maid might say something, but I don’t know.”

Her story was finally finished. He could feel it as his nervous tension finally ebbed away.

“You did the right thing.” He answered even as he clutched a sweaty palm to his head.

“It was self defense. She had no choice.” The burning was rising in his throat again, but this time he realized that it wasn’t from emotion.

“Where is she?” But somehow he already knew, even before a dark haired- heavily scarred girl in a serving girls outfit stepped beside him.

“Right here, Dad. I’ve been serving you … tea… all night.”

When she set a tray on the table between them, beside the tea pot, a potions vial glowed sickly yellow and green.

Falling Stars, Part 4

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 17:10:33 GMT

Title: Falling Stars
Rating: PG, Angst
Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

Falling Stars, part 4

Minerva stared at the parchment roll that had been unceremoniously dropped in beside her plate by a large, keen-eyed, black hawk that wheeled to swiftly deliver other messages to equally surprised recipients before catching her eye as it turned and flew out the window.

After glancing around the table to see that no one had yet noticed the significance of her the odd delivery bird, she caught the edge of the roll and carefully unrolled it- breathing in the wisp of clove and dragon’s blood that was released when it opened fully.

3rd square of Mars and Saturn

Potions Master -1c., Severus Snape,
Snape Manor
Spinner’s End

Headmistress Minerva McGonagall
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Edinburgh crux Aberdeen

Re: Formal Tender of Resignation

Headmistress McGonagall:

This notice is to inform you that, as of twelve midnight, on this day, under the 3rd square of Mars and Saturn, I formally tender my resignation of the position of Potions Instructor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. After twenty-two years of gainful employment, the exigencies of war have made returning to the classroom inconceivable.

In deference to a tradition observed by your predecessor, I would like to show the presumption of suggesting my replacement. To this end, I would offer my endorsement of Neville Longbottom to this position. While the young man’s potential was never seriously displayed within the classroom setting, the troubled events of the years since his graduation have given him the necessary discipline and confidence as well as tempered his personality in such a way that he has repeatedly demonstrated a level of competence (particularly in the area of potions based on the inclusion of living herbs) that exceeds any other potential candidate whom I am aware of. Additionally, Mr. Longbottom consistently demonstrates a tolerant and soothing manner that will undoubtedly benefit students born and raised in the recent war-troubled decades. It is my recommendation that he be allowed to hold this position while he studies and completes the potions mastery that he has already begun in conjunction with his studies in the healing arts.

On a personal note, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to yourself, Professor Flitwick, Professor Hagrid, Professor Sprout, Professor Sinistra, and Madam Pomfrey for the support and encouragement that you have provided throughout these years. It has been appreciated in the extreme despite the fact that the role I took up made acknowledgment of this support difficult and to some extent dangerous both to myself and to the recipient of my appreciation.

Further, while it is not my place to provide a recommendation for the position of the Defense against the Dark Arts Instructor, I would like to hereby withdraw each and all of my previous objections against Remus Lupin for this position. Former Professor Lupin’s service during the recent conflict have both laid to rest any concerns I previously held and demonstrated that many of fears had been based on little more than unwarranted prejudice.

It has been my honor to serve with each of you.

With the deepest sincerity,

Severus Snape.

“Headmistress?”

When Minerva finally looked up, wiping tears from her eyes, she was not entirely surprised to see Mr. Longbottom standing before her. She had noticed that the hawk had dropped an identical roll by his place setting, but had not known what to make of it. Without comment, they exchanged parchments.

3rd square of Mars and Saturn

Potions Master -1c., Severus Snape,
Snape Manor
Spinner’s End

Neville Longbottom
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Edinburgh crux Aberdeen

Re: Notice of Recommendation and Endorsement

Mr. Longbottom:

It may come as a surprise to you to discover that I have recommended that you succeed me in the position of potions instructor at Hogwarts. It is most likely no less of a surprise to you than it was to me, and I would have found it no difficulty – despite your years of service to the order and the war effort – to recommend any other candidate who was equally qualified in talent, temperament, and skill to this position – were I aware of one.

But, not withstanding the uncountable number of cauldrons that you transformed into slag metal during your years under my instruction, your performance in the last three years has demonstrated an unforeseeable aptitude in the subject that exceeds the skills of all other candidates in my knowledge. It is up to you to put this aptitude to its proper purpose.

Having made my recommendations, I do not, now, want to believed to be a fool for making this recommendation. To this end, should you accept the position that I am confident will be offered - I would give you the following instruction:

1. Do not forget that this subject, in the classroom, is equally dangerous to any of the battlefields we have served on. As you have so aptly demonstrated many times in the past, dangerous and life-threatening accidents are not only possible, but probable.

2. Do not allow the children to sense hesitation, fear, or uncertainty. To maintain the control necessary to prevent the inevitable explosion, poisoning, or other impending catastrophes, you must have established absolute authority you’re your students before the event or they will not have the commonsense to run when you order them to.

3. Do not forget that the children whom you will teach will be even more capable of exploiting fear, indulgence, and compassion than Voldemort ever was for the very reason that you will be inclined to coddle and indulge them to make up for their past suffering. That is the job for their heads of house, and you will only do them a disservice by engaging in it. They will happily use your Gryffindor nature against you at the first opportunity, and if you will allow them to– will continue to do so until they eventually fail their OWLS and NEWTS, should they life so long as to take them.

4. Purchase a kwikspell potions placemat if you must and label your utensils according to their placement. Despite your burgeoning talent, I have not been made to cringe by Vodemort as many times as I cringed at the reckless placement of your materials and tools in potentially dangerous proximities – including the one narrowly averted explosion less than two months ago when you unthinkingly dropped a glass stir stick glazed in dragon’s blood into the salt water wash.

5. Do not under any circumstances forget that tools, implements, and cauldrons that have contained or been used with dragon’s blood must be cleansed only with winter rain. Do not allow children on detention to touch any of these items unless you wish to risk disaster.

I fully anticipate you to exceed these expectations, and would not have endorsed you, otherwise.

Potions Master-1c.

Severus Snape

When Minerva looked up again, Longbottom’s eyes were filled with sadness, humor, and confusion.

“I’m not really certain whether he is trying to compliment, insult, encourage, frighten, or threaten me.” He exclaimed before looking back down at both letters – still somewhat shocked.

The headmistress could certainly understand why.

“I suspect that he is trying to do a smidgen of all of those. There may also be a hint of apology as well.”

“There is?”

“Well, as close as Professor Snape could ever come to apologizing, perhaps, but yes, I believe so. Could we discuss the subject of his letters this afternoon at tea? Perhaps with a transcript of your recent studies?”

The young man nodded then took the letter back to his chair, shaking his head in mystification as he did. As she watched him share the letter with the others at the table, Minerva discreetly wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. She was going to miss the unnerving, irritating, sullen, obstinate, precious man.

“Minerva?” Filius stood by her watching in concern.

Without explanation, she handed him the parchment and gathered her others to read back at the office, before she stood and quietly left. By the time she had reached the end of the dais, the sound of gasps told her that the other staff members had crowded around the Charms professor to read it. The only reaction that she heard after that, as she walked to the staff entrance, was Hagrid’s sniff as he said, “He call’d me perfess’r.”

Falling Stars - Part 3

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 16:58:40 GMT

Title: Falling Stars
Rating: PG, Angst
Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

from Falling Stars, part 2

… the professor was staring up at the tower with clenched teeth,
asking her quietly, “Where is Fawkes? Where is that blasted bird?”

The Phoenix should have already been in the air,
flying beside Harry, ready to catch him.

A suddenly sickening thought struck them both at once. What if
they hadn’t convinced, Harry? What if he hadn’t trusted them?
Hermione began to sway weakly, even as she heard the Headmistress urging,
“Hurry Severus, Hurry. He’s on the roof of the Astronomy tower.”

Falling Stars, Part 3

“Finite,” Severus growled again as he searched his mind for any trace of the magical imprint that he’d made of Potter.

“Potter,” he roared. “Potter, open this door at once!”

But, it wasn’t there; Severus could not find even the smallest trace of the boy’s magics. He truly had put every measure of it into the boy’s replica. It was what he had intended to do – so that he would not have to draw on more of Harry’s energies than necessary. They had been rushed; however, and as Severus had been running up the stairs to the tower, he had been clinging to the hope that he might have missed even the tiniest trace left in him to pull around his magic and shut down the boy’s wards. As soon as that hope was extinguished, he turned to other tactics.

“Reducto!”

“Reducto!”

“Reducto!”

His hexs broke weakly against the boy’s wards, ironically reminding him, once again how much stronger the child’s magics were than his.

“Reducto!” his chest ached with the force of his roared spell, the wand shook in his hand, and the burst of energy that streamed out of his wand glowed brilliant red as it shot across the corridor to wash ineffectually over the wards – not even warming the wood.

“Reducto!” he cried again, his chest tightening painfully as he cast the blasting spell faster than he could even fully recover his breath.

“Reducto!”

“Reducto!”

“Reducto!”

“Reducto!” “Reducto!” Filius Flitwick’s high-pitched voice cried in chorus with his.

“Reducto!”

“Reducto!”

“Reducto!”

They cast and recast the spell – sometimes alternating, sometimes striking at the same time – but all with little effect on the wards until the protection spells simply fell. Staggering and depleted, neither man believed that the wards had fallen beneath their onslaught, but nor did either man feel up to broaching the alternate possible reason for the wards to simply. Sharing a grim gaze, they hesitated, catching their breaths before Filius finally pushed the door open.

As the smaller professor stepped through the entry, Severus had a moment of disquiet, realizing that the evidence of his involvement would be obvious, condemning, and undeniable, but quickly shook it off. He had been willing, after all, to cast himself from the parapets less than an hour earlier, and since then had willingly participated in everything that followed. If he was going to be punished for it, then he had certainly earned that much and more. Nevertheless, he hesitated to follow when Flitwick stepped through and disappeared onto the roof.

If only that foolish child had extended his faith enough to suppress that damnable saving-people tendency. Had been too much to hope for that studying under Severus for nearly ten years would have instilled some sense into the boy?

“Severus?”

Filius returned to the door and laid a hand gently on the Potion Master’s arm.

“Severus, my friend, I’m sorry.”

Severus stared at the Charms Professor incredulously – stunned by both his colleague’s gentle treatment and the man’s use of the word friend. To his knowledge, the other man had never, in twenty years, considered him more than an unfortunate ally forced on him by Dumbledore.

“He’s gone.”

Shuddering at the thought that Filius had already found the replica, Severus was unprepared for the man’s next comment.

“Come. There’s nothing we can do to help the child, but at least, we can prevent his memory from being tarnished by a regrettable though understandable indiscretion.”

Forgetting for a moment what he had ordered the boy to do, Severus stared at the smaller man in confusion.

“Better to let the world think that he was tired and missed a step than confirm that he was drinking.” Flitwick explained sadly.

As the other instructor's explanation brought home the fact that Potter had gone along with at least a portion of the plan, Severus steeled himself for what he would see and stepped through the door – only to pause in shock.

The child had not only followed through on the plan, he had expanded on it. Clusters of pillows and a blanket had been spread near the center of the roof. At the head of the blanket, just beyond a rumpled mound of pillows, several scrapbooks lay haphazardly propped and thumbed through. Nearby, an untouched dinner plate kept a half-full bottle of butterbeer from tilting and spilling on one of the scrapbooks. Other butterbeer and firewhiskey bottles, in various stages of consumption, dappled the stone floor at random intervals as though they had been sampled and forgotten in whatever aimless pattern Potter had been wandering. The most noticeable addition though was a rather small bonfire burning brightly through a crumpled pile of Daily Prophets. The child must have planned on the bon fire for quite some time, judging by the number of newspapers that almost completely covered the area where the replica had been laying.

The child was positively Slytherin – taking a last-second chance to obscure any undesirable evidence while hiding the very action of destroying evidence in a social or political statement.

However did the child not end up in my house? Severus mused as he stared into the flames.

“Severus? Severus… Come away. You don’t need to do this.”

Flitwick was guiding him away – totally misinterpreting his surprise as distress. For almost a minute, Severus was tempted to startle the tiny man with a derisive smile at the unsolicited compassion, but if it helped him get away sooner, he could play the distraught mentor.

“Filius, What?” he glanced around in seeming confusion.

“Severus, come away!” Flitwick insisted with open concern.

“Where is Potter? Merlin, there are times that I believe that child could find danger in a pouch of pillow feathers. How Albus could think that I will be able to keep that child out of mischief is beyond me.”

“Severus, sit down. Wait here. Let me summon Minerva.”

“Nonsense, I am perfectly capable of dealing with that reckless …”

“Severus!” The headmistress’s voice cut him off before she reached their level. “That is quite enough. Have you no shame, no sense of decency? To…”

As she finally appeared, Minerva was brought up short by the sight of Flitwick waving frantically for her to stop.

“Filius, don’t intercede, even he should have the compassion to …”

“Minerva, No!” the Charm’s professor squeaked imperatively. “Stop. You don’t understand.”

“Really, what is there to understand?” Minerva’s caustic tone grated on Severus’s nerves, though he understood that it was justified by her grief. Still, according to Miss Granger, Minerva had witnessed the prophesy but had done nothing to offer Potter any other option. Severus was very tempted to challenge her on the issue as well as a number of others, including why she had left Potter in the Dursley’s care for so many years. It was after all the Head of House’s duty to ensure the child’s needs were guaranteed particularly when the child was away from school. Severus, himself, had gone on many home visitations to investigate suspicions of abuse or neglect. She was harping about compassion, but where had her compassion been when Potter told her that he wasn’t treated well at home?

Severus nearly let his seemingly distraught confusion slip to reveal her hypocrisy by turning her false compassion on itself, but thankfully, Flitwick spoke up before Severus lost his restraint.

“Minerva, Minerva. No. He was out there. He saw, but he hasn’t accepted it, yet.”

Severus felt a shaft of guilt at deceiving Flitwick into his defense, but it passed quickly, and he was nothing, if not pragmatic. The quicker he was away, the quicker he could get to Spinner’s end and be certain that the boy had followed through on the entire plan instead of setting the stage for a ridiculously Gryffindor-ish sacrifice.

“Minerva?” Severus carefully schooled his face to reflect impatient confusion. “What?”

Looking back to the door, he nodded – seeming to acknowledge it. “You got it open. I should have realized that it would be within the Headmaster and Headmistress’s purview to lower wards. Well, come along and let’s see what the foolish boy is up to now.”

Ignoring the look of shock on their faces, Severus stood quickly and strode purposefully back toward the tower entrance.

“Severus, stop!” Headmistress McGonagall ordered sharply. “Stop and accompany Professor Flitwick, if you would, to visit with Madame Pomfrey.”

“Nonsense! I am perfectly fine. If I was delayed a moment, I’m sure that it was simply due to the energy that we expended on the door. Now, let’s get the boy sorted out so that everyone can go on with their revelries.”

“Severus!” McGonagall clapped her hands sharply, drawing his attention forcibly back to her as she finished “Harry is dead! Professor. There is nothing left to be sorted.”

To his surprise, Severus hardly needed to manufacture a look of intense distress when he looked at her. Somehow, her words struck at his uncertainty and his own fear that the boy had sacrificed himself to be certain that the prophesy would be averted. Playing on the open sympathy running across her face, he let his distress linger for several seconds before schooling his face in what Albus had once described as his “you-can’t-hurt-me” mask.

“No,” he denied carefully. “No, the boy has a talent for finding hidden tunnels and passages. We simply need to find him.”

“Oh … Severus... Dear, Dear boy. He has been found.” Her face filled with such heartache that he had to turn away. “Severus, Hagrid is even now laying out is body beside Albus’s.”

For the second time, unexpected pain supplied his response as he suddenly pictured both his mentor and his charge somberly laid in state.

“No!” His pained protest came unbidden to his lips.

“Filius, please see that Severus gets to Madame Pomfrey.”

Severus almost protested but stopped himself when it occurred to him that he would need to see and copy Madam Pomfrey’s records to be sure that he was aware of the boys needs as he recovered. He didn’t realize how much that small decision helped reinforce his emotional distress with both Minerva and Flitwick until he saw them watching him with concern. It took a moment for him to realize that they were waiting for his customary fight to avoid the hospital wing, and when they saw it wasn’t coming, their eyes locked worriedly.

Without further comment, Severus quietly suffered Flitwick’s anxious attentions as he let his colleague lead him to the hospital wing, even startling Madam Pomfrey as he entered silently and took one of the open seats. Adopting an almost meek attitude in place of the over emotional breakdowns that would be expected of the others, Severus intentionally let his behavior slip so far out of character – knowing that the difference from his usual behavior would say everything that he needed to without him having to attempt overarching expressions of sincere grief. As a result, after a swift conference with Professor Flitwick, Madam Pomfrey settled Severus into one of the few open beds, had him take a quarter vial of calming draught, and bustled around to check on several more seriously wounded patients, all the while keeping a concerned eye on him.

Close to two hours passed before the nurse was called away, giving him the opportunity to summon Harry’s records and quick copy them. After he’d read scanned them enough to know what potions he would need over the next few days, he quickly returned them and stood to leave.

“Professor?”

Seven beds down, Miss Granger was tucked tightly in, looking incredibly pale though composed.

“Miss Granger?”

“Did he?”

“I don’t know. He complied with the first portion at least, but…”

“Okay. Sir. I have some items that should be of use to you. I had hoped to give them to you before we left the Great Hall, but…”

“I understand. What are they?”

Casting a strong, though, near silent sound-dampening spell, Hermione asked him to cast another, just-in-case… and she went on to explain as he did.

“The first is a rememberall charmed to carry and update all of Harry’s medical records with any treatment he receives. There’s a lot there because I went back to get his hospital records from Little Whinging, too.’

‘The next holds all of prophesies that I’ve made throughout the past seven years. Most seem unrelated, but there must have been some reason that they came to me instead of to Trelawny or one of the foreign seers that the ministry hires.”

At Severus’s raised eyebrow, she assured him: “I’ve also put all of the memories and details that I would have had to lie about if Fudge ever caught on to the right questions to ask. With them safely tucked in that, you can prove why you did what you did, and Fudge won’t be able to find a thing out from me.”

“The last rememberall holds a compilation of Harry’s journals, copies of his scrapbooks, his letters – the stuff that would be noticed if it went missing. Here’s a key to his vault. Harry made sure that we knew before he faced Voldemort that he had left everything to Remus, the Weasleys, and me. We each have keys; that one’s mine.”

At that point, Severus stopped her, returning the key to her palm.

“That won’t be necessary. I am not without means, and living close to twenty years at Hogwarts without charge has let what was originally a modest amount amass into a sizeable living, and that does not even include the salary I have received for working at one of the premier school of magic, or the royalties that I’ve received for developing veritaserum for the Ministry. But, thank you, I appreciate your generosity and am very sure that another will as well.”

Just as he turned to leave, Granger caught his hand and pushed a folded scroll into it.

“Sir, when I saw how you reacted to Juliette’s name, I thought… that there might be hope.”

Under the influences of the calming draught, Severus couldn’t get properly mad, though the parchment shook in his hands as he stared at the meddlesome girl.

“Tomorrow, at 1:00, she said she’ll be waiting for you in the flat in Hastings, but please hear her out, Sir. She doesn’t think you will be able to forgive her, but … I-I told her that you’ve seen a lot during the war – that I thought you would understand and forgive her.”

The girls rambling made no sense. He had sent Juliet away to live with his cousins. She had not abandoned him, and even if she had. Well, it had been seven years since Voldemort’s return. Seven years since Severus had felt it safe to contact her directly. He had truly not expected her to wait that long for him, and had in fact been relieved every year that he had not received a barrister’s announcement. If she wished his forgiveness for that, he would give it freely… had already given it, in fact.

“Sir.”

“What is it Granger?”

“If you see…could you…”

“Miss Granger, I am certain that your arrangements will tell the person they are for exactly what you wish him to know.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

At their parting words, the silencing spells fell, and Severus quickly departed.

Tarot Meme

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 04:44:39 GMT

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Falling Stars, part 2

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:51:36 GMT

Title: Falling Stars

Rating: PG, Angst

Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

Falling Stars, part 2

When Hermione returned, she was startled to see that Professor Snape had released Harry. She had tried futilely for several hours to make Harry see sense, but he had still refused to accept any of the possible scenarios that she had suggested. But, then none of her scenarios had the potential that Professor Snape’s had.

“Where are the…” Before the professor could finish his question, Hermione flicked her wand commanding “accio Harry’s cloak” to reveal everything that she had used the time turner to gather and prepare over several months. She had even spent two additional weeks in the professor’s past learning and practicing the spells they were going to perform.

“Have you explained it to him?” She really didn’t need to ask. The uncomfortable grimace on his face confirmed that he was barely accepting what he had been told.

“Yes, or at least enough so that he can waste precious time quibbling over irrelevant details.”

“Such as?” Hermione glanced to Harry hoping that more information would make what they were going to do seem more palatable – even as the professor threw his hands up in exasperation.

“Were going to change the cor… body to be physically and magically identical to me, even putting my energy in it so that it stays that way after it changes, but … what about ...”

“Harry?”

“What about his family? They have a right to know what happened to him, don’t they? They shouldn’t go through life wondering.”

Hermione knew that the worry had come from Harry’s own years of sad speculation about what had happened to his parents. But, she had expected that and was glad that she had taken it into consideration when she had chosen her friend’s replacement.

“Harry, he was a death eater. To prove himself to Voldemort… he killed his parents and two sisters. There’s no one else to inform.”

“Oh.” Harry looked a little sickened by the thought, but the resolve in his eyes steadied as he turned back to Professor Snape.

“Okay, what do I have to do?”

“For the moment, just strip.” Looking over the bulwarks with irritation, Severus muttered, “Do they have to walk so steadily? This will not be as swift as in a living body.”

After dropping in the locks of hair that he had trimmed from the nape of Harry’s neck, Severus quickly reheated the poly potion, then – using his wand to absorb the potion – he directed it into the corpse through every accessible orifice and wound that he could discreetly reveal. Working quickly, the professor used an unlinked llegimens to transfer Harry’s imprint then turned back to Harry and reopened their strange wandless link. Drawing out a minute strand of energy that was completely unconnected to Harry’s healing energies, the professor funneled it into the replacement.

As Harry watched in astonishment, the corpse’s skin seemed to bubble and melt reforming into his exact likeness. Hermione caught him and turned him away from the naked corpse and murmured soft assurances. When they heard the professor summoning his clothes, they turned back and Harry blushed hotly – realizing that Hermione was right there and the body had more close on than he did. He tried to ignore the professor’s knowing smirk and lifted his wand to summon more, but Hermione’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“You can’t. Someone might notice the missing clothes.”

“But, what am I supposed to wear?”

The Potion’s master smirked again as he absent-mindedly shrunk his over cloak to fit Harry and reminded them, “cloaked in death’s grim pall.” Although his voice sounded ironic, Hermione relaxed when he flashed an encouraging look back up at Harry when her friend started slipping on the heavy black cloak. Finally, buttoning it down the front, Harry swallowed nervously and asked.

“What’s next?”

This was the part that had thoroughly worried Hermione. Despite the months that she had taken to brew the poly juice, she still hadn’t come up with a single idea how to convincingly switch the replacement for Harry with many witnesses watching so that they would not investigate the corpse too thoroughly. Even though, she hadn’t discovered any weakness in the spells – despite numerous tests, she wasn’t willing to take chances with Harry’s life in the balance. Thankfully, from the glint in the professor’s eyes she suspected that he had come up with something, though Harry may not like whatever it was.

“Simply put, Harry. Summon a number of ale and firewhiskey tankards up here so the spell traces will be in your wand when they check, then make an ass of yourself. Climb up on the outer wall, stumble around a bit as though you’ve had a case to many fire whiskeys and seem to accidentally step off. Fawkes will be carrying the replica in your invisible cloak, and as soon as you step off, will drop it and flash with you to Spinner’s End. I will follow as quickly as I can.”

Hermione winced slightly. It was pretty dangerous as it was, but she hadn’t been able to think of anything better. When her oldest friend finally turned to her, and they stared at each other until Professor Snape finally broke their silent tearful goodbye.

“If this is to work, it must be done within moments, and we must not seem a party to it.”

Sighing, Hermione nodded and caught Harry’s cheek in her palm as she pressed a kiss to his forehead. After giving them a moment, the potions’ master caught her arm pulling her away. She barely noticed until she reached the door and the professor assured them in a soft voice, “as soon as this is over, you will see each other again. There is no need to waste time on maudlin sentimentality.”

Hermione nodded, but whether it was instinct or fear that told her she would never see him again – at least not like this- she didn’t know. She was only certain that she wouldn’t. Afraid to let it show in her eyes, Hermione forced an encouraging smile and waved weakly before she followed the professor out. The door softly closed behind them and she felt the wards settle in again as she took her first stuttering steps down the stairs.

By the time they reached the Great Hall, a crowd was already gathering by the window and people were gasping and shouting warnings at the figure stumbling around on the bulwarks. No one had noticed the group of impressively armed aurors and ministry personnel who had just shown up, but they were entirely focused on the wavering figure as well. Feeling the potions master stiffen beside her as he studied the new arrivals, Hermione pointed to the nearly hidden ‘leader’ at their center – though she suspected that he would have realized that the minister was the ‘freed fool” behind the latest danger. Even without looking, she could picture the eager expression that he was wearing as he watch Harry stumble repeatedly in seeming drunkenness.

She hadn’t expected to hear the professor’s sudden anxious intake of breath. But, instead of spotting someone in the new contingent that he recognized or disliked, the professor was staring up at the tower with clenched teeth, asking her quietly, “Where is Fawkes? Where is that blasted bird?”

The bird should have already been in the air, flying beside Harry, ready to catch him.

A suddenly sickening thought struck them both at once. What if they hadn’t convinced, Harry? What if he hadn’t trusted them? Hermione began to sway weakly, even as she heard the Headmistress urging, “Hurry Severus, Hurry. He’s on the roof of the Astronomy tower.”

As darkness closed around her, Hermione heard Luna Lovegood, among others, break out in a long heart wrenching scream. It was the first time that she could remember that Luna sounded completely normal. Funny that it would take something like this.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another HP moment. -- Falling Stars

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:48:43 GMT

I am still wrangling with several of my SV pieces and hope to post something by wed, but this has almost been writing itself the past two days.

Title: Falling Stars

Rating: PG, Angst

Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

Falling Stars

Unexpectedly, at the last rise of stairs, Severus had to pause to steel his nerves. Sneering at his own moment of weakness, the professor reminded himself of the long decision making process that he had gone through to reach this conclusion. In retrospect, the logic of it was still sound.

He had paid the penance of his earlier tragic decision to the fullest extent that he could. He had done Albus’s bidding to the letter. The war was over. The Dark Lord was vanquished. Even if his family would accept his return, he was not the same man who had left them… a man they could or should love… a man who could love them in return. There was no reason or purpose left to hold him.

Severus had by necessity become a thorough study of the human mindset; as such he thoroughly understood that -though he had found a measure of friendly acceptance among both of the sides- he would go down in the annuals of history as a turn-coat, if he was even named in the footnotes. Their memories of his often unknown services would quickly fade – becoming vague and suspicious. Soon, seeds of doubt would blossom, and the security that Dumbledore’s presence and backing had secured for him would fall as surely as his mentor had.

After shutting the swift stab of pain that came at the thought of Albus’s sacrifice, Severus shook off his lethargy and took the stairs two at a time before he was tempted to rethink his decision yet again. His progress was quickly halted as he threw a hand up to push the door at the top of the stairs open and nearly broke his wrist. It had been locked and warded shut… with a very familiar signature.

Sneering in disgust at the reasons that the reckless hero might have locked the astronomy tower (all of which undoubtedly cycled around the youngest Weasley sibling in varying shades of dress), Severus nearly turned and left them to their personal celebrations. After all, despite the obstacle the boy was being to his plans, Potter had certainly earned the right to risk his reputation with a hasty wand-point wedding. What did it matter if he was delayed one more day? Shaking his head wryly as he turned, Severus was almost amused by the matter.

Having ample exposure to the boy’s mind through the ‘remedial potions lessons’, Severus had been uncomfortably aware that the boy was still an innocent in every sense of the word. In fact, he was certain that Potter had never even having gone beyond two tentative and chaste kisses with the young Miss Weasley, whom Severus suspected was actually the more experienced of the two despite her brothers’ constant tendency to be overprotective. Not that he would have wanted to be privy to the boy’s peccadilloes; but, with the intense demands being placed on the the young Gryffindor, Severus had thought, more than once, that the child should have been encouraged, at least occasionally. to follow the model of his friends and enjoy the life he had so painfully earned.

Perhaps, it was even right that Severus should find himself so delayed to take the same opportunity. Would it be so bad to participate in the revelry while they still considered him a companion of sorts? He would still depart before their fickle opinions had the chance to change. Perhaps he might even take the opportunity to lift the tankard that Moody had offered to buy him – in the auror’s irrational joy at the dark - at Voldemort’s demise. It would be amusing if only to watch the convolutions that Rosemerta’s face would undoubtedly go through. The delay grew in appeal as he considered it, and Severus was soon turning to go back downstairs and join the revelers when his mind oddly separated several sounds from the ecstatic hue and cry rising up the spiral stairs.

With his back to the door, the sounds were easily separated both by their location and by their nature. Those rising from below were chaotic and joyous while those coming from behind him were frantic and heartrending – filled with anguish and anxiety. What most surprised Severus though was that they were not human. The frantic cries were clearly that of an owl… and Fawkes, the headmaster’s phoenix.

Turning back to the door, Severus listened carefully for the sounds of the boy’s sobbing or other emotional outburst, but he heard nothing. If he had, he would have immediately returned with McGonagall to comfort the boy’s well deserved unravel; but, aside from the panicked hooting and pathetic phoenix trills, the roof was disturbingly quiet. An unpleasant apprehension began to claw at his chest.

If the boy wanted to break down, in private, there were numerous rooms to do so in. The room of requirement. Several on the third and fourth floors that Severus had certain knowledge of the boy exploring in his first year. The Gryffindor tower. Even the headmaster’s bedrooms, which had been given over to the boy in the last days of the war – as the only rooms sufficiently warded to dampen Voldemort’s almost constant mental attacks. To Severus’s knowledge, the child had yet to move back into the tower and had never given his friends or dorm mates the passwords at the late headmaster’s request.

There were no logical reasons that he could bring to mind for the boy to choose the astronomy tower in his still fragile condition, particularly given the availability of so many closer rooms and the long winding climb to the tower’s roof… and especially none that would explain or justify the alarmed hoots and cries that he was hearing. As if to peak his interest, other frantic bird cries, hoots, and caws joined the first. Had the boy, even in his weakened state, made it to the top of the tower - only to collapse?

Setting aside his indecision, Severus brought forward the delicate imprint of Harry’s persona and magic that he had captured early in their occulmency lessons to camouflage him from Voldemort were they ever to link with Potter’s mind simultaneously. Pulling it around him, Severus softly whispered ‘finite’ and carefully pushed the door open, drawing his wand in case Potter needed immediate first aid. Had he not done so, Potter would have died moments later – for on hearing the soft barely audible squeak of the hinges, Potter frantically pushed through the wall of crows, owls, eagles, (and Fawkes) that had been holding him on the bulwark and stepped off the edge.

Had Severus’s reflexes been even a second slower, the wizarding world would have lost its latest hero. Instead, without pausing to think, Severus roared ‘Immobillus’ and froze even the air surrounding Potter so that the child hung over the edge of the tower – staring at the ground below. As his heart lurched in panic, Severus rushed forward grabbing the boy and pulling him back in.

“You idiot boy! You idiot boy! What on earth were you thinking? What possessed you?” Staring down at the broken child, Severus wanted to shake him but feared leashing his temper if he did.

“Albus gave his life – for you, and you do this? Why?” The headmaster wasn’t even in his grave yet, and the ungrateful wretch was throwing away the headmaster’s gift. He had the right to be distressed certainly, to feel broken, to wallow in depression, yes… to that and so many other possible responses, but this? No, the child had no right to do this.

“What were you thinking?” he wanted to shriek, but it only came out as a choked question.

“He was thinking of you and of everyone else, who’s prophesied to die, tonight.” a solemn voice answered from the parapet’s entrance.

“Prophesied?” Severus shuddered at the thought that his death had been prophesied. “There was another prophesy when, from whom?”

“Three nights ago. It was given in the presence of Harry, the Headmaster, and Headmistress McGonagall as they waited for news of Ginny and Fleur’s recovery.”

Scanning the darkness, Severus suddenly jerked his head back and scowled as he recognized Potter’s know-it-all friend hovering in the door. At the last report, he’d been told that she was still recovering from the trauma of watching her fiancé die in the last battle after being surrounded mid air by an entire nest of dementors. Poppy doubted that she would be back to her self even by the end of the week. Yet, here she stood babbling about a prophesy.

“What is the meaning of this? Trelawny was the only verified seer living after the first war.”

He did not need to add that she had been killed in Hogsmeade eight months earlier after it had come to Voldemort’s attention, due to a slip in Harry’s shields, that Trelawny had been the seer prophesying both his return and Harry’s role. Hermione would know that as well as he, having been one of Potter’s few supports in the weeks that followed the Hogsmeade attack.

An unnerving smile crossed her lips as she studied him. Finally, when he was about to demand an explanation, she actually snorted – delicately and rather femininely, but snorted nonetheless and answered, “Verified perhaps, though I would have loved to see her own scores, the old fraud. Yes, she was the only ‘verified’ seer, but that was due to Headmaster Dumbledore’s fear that the ministry would persecute a muggleborn seeress – particularly one befriending the boy-who-lived.”

Waiting with a smirk as the implications sunk in, Hermione nodded when his eyes asked the question that he barely kept himself from asking.

“Yes, me.” She answered, regardless. “Perhaps you noticed that it seemed to take me twice as long to recover from being petrified by the basilisk than any of its other victims?”

“Or, did you think, that perhaps it was due to my muggle bloodline?” She nearly laughed when his shocked expression confirmed her suspicion. “No, somehow, the mandrake potion triggered my first prophesy. It rather startled Madam Pomfrey. No doubt it would have startled you even more.”

“Four of five remained alive bonded by hate and love, slaves of the past. One haunted, two hunted, one beloved but guilty, two hated but innocent – two left at last. The fifth lives anew in love but hatred, too. Until with a sixth, they become three.”

“huhhhh.” Severus sighed as he slowly attempted to interpret the strangely complex prophesy. “Only you could have predicted something so convoluted.”

It was surreal to hear her chuckle as they almost ignored one of her closest friends still lying spellbound at their feet.

“Well, that’s perhaps true; however, if Trelawny had truly accepted her gifts and studied them instead of trying to pass off that drivel on us, so much of the sorrow that has happened over the past ten years could have been avoided. Instead, she effectively forced the powers to use her as a conduit for only the simplest and most straight forward messages that her audience could self-interpret. On top of that, she was so much of a gossip monger that even the memory of her visions were kept from her, so that she wouldn’t let the information slip to the wrong person.”

“You’re saying that you remember you’re visions… and interpret them?” he sneered and continued, “How convenient. Tell me just what did that one mean.”

“It’s not quite as simple as that, prophesy is not about predicting the future in order for others to try and change it as Voldemort did – selecting Harry because he feared that he would have less of a chance against a pure-blood wizard than he would a half-blood like himself.” At his questioning look, she explained: “The proper role of prophesy is merely to help those involved understand, recognize present options, and accept what must come to pass. But, Voldemort wasn’t capable of any of those things, and he believed or wanted to that he could thwart the prophesy by choosing his opponent.”

Severus’s look of doubt begged for an answer, and Hermione couldn’t resist finally being allowed to explain something to him so continued even though she knew the prophesied events were swiftly approaching.

“In some senses, he was a strong believer in what muggles call genetics and worried that magic was necessarily carried in the blood (hence blood magics). In his mind, the purer the bloodline, the purer and more dangerous the bloodline. Hence his decision to attack Harry’s parents (one a muggle born and the other a lesser pureblood from a family with several instances of ‘muggle contamination’ in its bloodline). That was just another reason that he allowed pure bloods to retain the highest ranks in his little militia (in addition to their hefty donations to his cause): he believed that their presumably stronger magic would provide a better defense.”

“And… what does that prophesy have to do with this?”

“Well, quite a lot actually, but hopefully we’ll be able to discuss it at a later date. I was merely using it as an example of how much suffering was caused because of it.”

“How quaint, but you still haven’t explained your prophesy.”

“I was actually hoping to see whether you would draw its meaning.”

“I see several possibilities. Tell me, has it come to pass?”

“Yes. If we had more time, it would be interesting to let you puzzle it out. Basically, it discussed Sirius’s return, Peter Petegrew’s exposure, Severus’s death … And your mental link with Harry and Remus in the final battle with the Dementors and Voldemort. Three becoming one to cast a form of patronus that none could have alone.”

“How is that possible? I assure you that there was not even one moment in time during which I could have been considered one of the Marauders.”

“Perhaps you were not welcomed by them, but think back, consider whether you can remember spending a greater amount of time with any of your housemates than you did with them. You were an outcast in your house – reviled by the others because of your parentage. Until your seventh year, who did you spend most of your time following, trading pranks with, and challenging?”

Stepping backward in shock, Severus turned a snarling grimace back to Har- Potter. Potter had sworn that he had never disclosed those or other details, and now he was seeing the truth of the arrogant boy’s honor. Without thinking, Severus felt himself drawing his foot back in a barely aimed kick. He wouldn’t strike anywhere that was already damaged, but it was absolutely beyond bearing for the boy to not share in the pain of this last betrayal.

“Severus, no. Harry didn’t tell me. I saw it for myself.” Hermione explained in a rush, recognizing the pain, anger, and anguish in his expression, “That, and the Christmas in France when you took Gabrielle Fontescue’s aunt to the Louvre. Sir… Professor, Harry never knew about that. You know he didn’t. He doesn’t know about Juliette, either. But, I do.”

“How dare you! How did you find out? How did…” His eyes snapped sharply to her, the betrayal no less pained but now at a different target. “A time turner. I always suspected that you were given one third year. Taking all of those courses when there was simply no time to do so. But, Albus wouldn’t speak of it. Then, Black miraculously disappears before he’s about to be kissed.’

‘Tell me child, didn’t they tell you that using those to go back and spy on someone’s life is absolutely against the rules. I was even a confirmed spy for the order and the side of light, but Albus refused my request for one. Then, he allows you to have one. Tell me, did you enjoy your little voyeuristic trip through my life? Hmm? Which made you laugh loudest when my father beat me or when James humiliated me or when Voldemort debased me? Which did you enjoy most? I’m dying to know.” His rant ended on a bitter laugh.

“Professor, stop and think for a moment. I’m certain you know how closely the ministry monitors time turner spells, and how restricted it is. Do you really think they gave it to me to get a few extra class credits in? No matter how bright I was, they wouldn’t take that kind of risk. I couldn’t have gone back for frivolous reasons, even if I had wanted to. Think! I was given the time turner precisely because I was a seer, and if you think the general rules regarding time turners are strict, you should see the seer’s restrictions on time turners. It took me the whole summer between my second and third year to read the entire book and I finally had to test out on it. That was a trick in itself; the headmaster helped me borrow a few of the supplies to mix polly juice so that I could take my test as Professor Trelawny. She even tasted flaky.”

Despite his still-churning anger, Severus couldn’t help pulling up short from his pacing at that comment with a harsh chuckle.

“Professor, I didn’t find a minute of it amusing. Not watching your childhood … or Harry’s” Hermione stepped between them and cast a glance at her friend who was staring up at her with his own shocked, angry expression. “Do you think I wouldn’t have gone back and pulled him away from their clutches, rules or no rules if I wasn’t so strongly and magically bound to my duty?”

“Why didn’t you ever tell us, Love?” she asked softly, but Harry was still spellbound and until she got through to Severus, Hermione knew that she couldn’t release him. While she was the strongest witch of her age, she had long ago recognized that Harry was beyond her ability to contain.

“Or you, for that matter, no matter what you think of me, consider how I feel about any thing being mistreated- even house elves. Do you honestly believe I would have left a child in those conditions if it would not have been ruinous not to? Do you think I would have let Ron…” She broke of dashing tears from her eyes and focused determined eyes on the professor as she continued, “We don’t have time for this. No matter what you may think of me. Harry needs you. There’s so little time.”

As she finished speaking, Hermione pulled a remeberall out of her pocket and swept her hand over it, before murmuring ‘Wulfric.’ Setting aside his pique, Severus turned his rapt attention to the globe floating above her palm as a thin wisp of smoke twisted inside it to form a small image of Hermione within the globe. As he studied it, an echo of her soft voice gently sang in tones of unearthly sadness:

On the night that sees

Goliath die -- wraith-razed,

Joyous toasts lifted,

And young David praised--

A freed fool’s enmity

Shall crest and break,

Leaving revelers -

Deaths disguised

By war’s wake –

Lest David, cloaked,

In Death’s grim pall,

Should seem to fall-

Where Goliath, too,

From heights on high,

Once marked a star’s

Fall from the sky.

Expose the fool

Bring about his fall,

Your sacrifice shall

Gently- finally, end it all.

So, in death’s grim protection,

Go alone and forlorn,

To be made whole,

To be reborn.

Welcome Death, young David

but do not cease,

In the shade of death,

Find and give peace.

As her tear filled song ended, Severus turned back to Harry to stare down at the child’s begging eyes. Before the child had even recovered from the mildest of the wounds that he’d suffered, he was being asked once again to sacrifice everything. It was simply too much. Yet, the child had clearly intended …

“No.” he answered the desperate green eyes. “You can not simply accept death on her word. Seeress or no. Too much has been asked of you. Too much has been paid for your life to be thrown away.” The professor broke off as his own words tore apart the whole logical chain of decisions that had led him to the tower for a very similar purpose.

“Thank you. Severus, thank you.” Hermione cried. “I’ve tried to tell him not to take it on face value. But, he just doesn’t understand. He thinks it has to be literal and straight forward because the other prophesies about him were. I’ve tried and tried to point out other options, but I don’t know what else to do.”

Shocked by her sudden return to seeming her age, Severus considered the prophesy again and suddenly laughed. The irony. The sheer irony. Without even realizing it, she had given him the answer. He wouldn’t have remembered his aborted plan to get Juliette out of Dover if Hermione had not mentioned the girl. Staggering as he felt the weight and surety of his purpose restored, Severus looked up at the seeress and asked with a smirk, “How much of my time with Juliette did you see?”

“Up to the flat in Hastings. Why?”

“Dover?”

“Yes.”

He waited smugly until her eyes flashed up at him with an obvious answer.

“The prophesy said David should seem to fall, I believe?”

Her eyes lit with grim appreciation at his question as she began to understand his plan.

“It fits. It fits. Cloaked… he’s supposed to be cloaked in death’s grim pall – not suffering it. Or in the grip of it. Oh, Severus, it fits.”

“You know what I need?”

“A well deceased corpse that hasn’t been buried. Well, we have plenty of those. Poly juice. Harry’s hair. His wand. His…oh… oh no. It won’t work.” She broke off in a sob.

“What?”

“We… it wouldn’t work without his magical imprint. We don’t have it, and it would take too long to create one.”

“Actually, we do. From our… sessions.”

“Oh.” A wide smile broke across her face until she caught sight of a thick mass of shadows approaching on the road from Hogsmeade. “He’s coming.”

Before Severus could ask exactly who he was, Hermione pulled the gold time turner out, stared at it briefly and disappeared, without even having touched it.

Glancing back at Potter, the Potions master tried to gauge the determination in the child’s green eyes before he released the bind and was disturbed to find defiance and fatalism burning in his gaze.

“Potter… Harry…Child, do you want to die?” the boy had apparently expected a rougher, more argumentative response, and turned away to gather his nerve, but not before Severus saw his sad hesitation. Nevertheless, after a second, the child’s head dipped in a seemingly determined nod.

The pure Gryffindor bravado of the act brought a thick chuckle from his professor. When the boy finally looked up, Severus unbuttoned his cuffs and asked, “Potter, haven’t you figured it out yet? You don’t have to die, only seem to. It’s there. ‘Welcome death, but do not cease.’ In other lines as well. ‘In death’s grim protection’… Have you not figured out who death is, yet?”

Turning his arm so that Harry could see it, Severus rolled his sleeve up until Harry could see the still prominent dark mark. When Harry’s eyes finally widened with understanding, he softly asked- not willing to stir up the boy’s defiance- “even if you’re not certain, will you trust me, Harry?”

Pressing the boy’s uncertainty, he shamelessly reminded, “Albus did.”