June 17th, 1996 - End of Year 5
Derbyshire, England
Three overprotective wizards faced-off against a pair of justifiably indignant parents. The battle ground, for a lack of a better word, was the drawing room of an estate that mirrored Malfoy Manor with its seventeen-century architecture, impeccable upkeep, finely appointed over-sized rooms, and extensive complementary grounds without delving into ostentatiousness or whimsy.
The creation of an unregistered Portkey posed less of a risk then actually materializing in the girl's familial Derbyshire home. Anxiety nipped at their attempts at diplomacy; every moment they spent with the Muggles was another moment they could be discovered.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
Severus Snape had all he could do not to repeat Draco Malfoy's demand for an explanation from the two people he, Draco, and Justin Finch-Fletchley – the most unlikely trio of emissaries – now held accountable for the unaccountable whereabouts of the one person all five of them had a vested interest in locating.
"I did what I had to do, that's what I did! She's MY daughter! She's been LYING to us – come to find out – for YEARS!" The cords along the sides of the man's neck stretched tautly with every word; the belief in his daughter's betrayal ripped across the room and ricocheted off of the ornately-framed portraits and heirloom still-lifes.
"She HAD too! YOU didn't give her a choice!" Draco's hands spread wide, invoking the price she, the woman he'd promised – as well as been promised to protect since his inception – to protect, paid. "Do you REALLY THINK she-"
"DRACO!" Severus snapped at the young man, an attempt to curtail the blame-slinging. To the two people standing opposite them, he struggled to speak reasonably. "What is important is ascertaining what happened – so that we can find her."
They, though, weren't ready to be reasonable. If anything, they became even more antagonistic.
"Our only daughter, who we thought was safe – at a boarding school in Gstaad – comes home, with a newly healed scar the size of the Highlands on her body? Of course we're going to demand answers!" Hands unable to stay still, a mannerism they'd witnessed her daughter emulate, the woman gestured to the three wizards. "And what are you all doing here? What right do you have coming here, interfering with-"
"ENOUGH!" Severus shouted, his patience challenged with the need to find the girl; to see with his own eyes that she was safe and secure. Once more, he forced himself to speak in, albeit modulated, even tones. "This isn't accomplishing anything!"
He drew in a deep breath, and as he exhaled, he looked pointedly at Draco and Justin, making sure they keep their mouths shut – for the time being. He attempted to invoke a modicum of trust by admitting the reason for their visit. "We are here because none of us can locate her."
Severus wished he had a different disposition, one that would allow him to let the man vent, wear himself out, and then deal with the matter at hand. He didn't. Time was of the essence and his concern for the girl was equal to that of the parents who stared at him as if he was the second-coming of the devil.
"Whatever explanations you two believe you're entitled too aren't going to happen today." He gritted against the instinct to sneer. "Not until the girl is found and we all can discuss this together."
"That's rich!"
"Be that as it may, madam…" He all but growled at her insinuation of a double-standard. "We can't find the girl unless you tell us what transpired."
"You are not the only ones with means! With one phone call, I've mobilize the entire Airborne Rescue Detail. Every hotel, hospital, police station and Tube-attendant from here to Iceland has her name, description, and my contact information. The borders are closed so tight-"
"We know who you are, Sir. You and my father attended Eton together. Your seats in the House of Lords are side by side." The effort it took for the 'Puff to speak calmly and evenly was evident in the way he clenched his hands. His knuckles were white and his forearms rigid as the dark-haired boy acknowledged the station, and with whom the parents were connected with, of the parents of the young woman he loved like a sister. The same young woman who was sworn to protect them all, both of her own volition and her inception. "We're – there are others than just us – bound to her; we refer to ourselves as The Affinity. We just want to – no, need – to find her, Sir."
Draco, somewhat mollified by Justin's acknowledgement of his – and the others who shared in her Affinity – place in her life, found the means to speak clearly and without pointing the proverbial finger.
"What happened here will determine which direction we look for her. Each of our relationships with her are different; her state of mind would give us a clue as to whom she'd be most likely to go to."
"She's OUR daughter! You can't take her from us!" The woman's true fear echoed her every word.
An unspoken unkind rejoinder radiated from each of the wizards: we can't take what isn't here.
"She's not just yours."
Severus was surprised at how softly he spoke. Then again, the truth often doesn't need embellishment.
"She hasn't been since the day she was born, nigh, the moment she was conceived. You know that. These boys' fathers, myself, and two others, sat in this very room almost six years ago and acknowledged what was to be expected from all of us. And yet, you tried to circumvent Fate." A hint of exasperation escaped despite is his best attempt otherwise. "What did you expect to happen when Necessity has deemed otherwise? Now, because of what has transpired here, we are – un-necessarily – on the cusp of exposure! There are those among us," Snape made sure they knew he referred to wizard-kind, "who, if they knew, no, suspected the possibility…" The man and woman stood to lose a child. The rest of them, least of all her, stood to lose so much more. "They would take her from us under the auspices of 'the greater good'!"
Tears stood in both the parents' eyes. Only the man's fell down his face.
"Do you know what it's like, to have to give up your daughter, your flesh-and-blood, the one being in the whole universe, " he glanced at his wife, to make sure she knew that she was included in his declaration of protection despite his choice in pronoun, "you'd not only kill to save, but die to protect?" He cupped his hands together, re-enacting the moment when he first held his newly born daughter. "To hold a new life in your hands, and know that the baby cradled in your arms has the power to re-set the pillars of your soul?" Resentfulness replaced the awe of being a new parent. "Only to be told, after you raise her, heal her, nurture her, read to her, encourage her, build her up from a blank canvas to a complex work of art, all because of the love you feel for her and desire to see her become everything you know she can be, only to be told that she can't be yours any more? That you only get her three months out of the year? That when you do see her, it's a heart-wrenching struggle to reconnect to the very life you identify as your own, to reconcile the child you leave on a train platform with the teenager that steps off that very same train nearly a year later?" He didn't bother to clear the wetness from his face. "That's been OUR life! Don't preach to me about sacrifice! I KNOW the meaning of that word, good sir! My wife and I live with that definition every minute of every day!
"My daughter came home with cuts and bruises and nightmares – night terrors! - from some quest for some stone."
"And then, the next year, we receive notice by letter – a letter!" He glared at the dark-haired youth, the spitting image of a man he perceived a brother as well as a fellow father denied his parental rights by a society who perceived his, his wife's and his daughter's 'kind' the lowliest form of life. "Which informed us after-the-fact that our daughter spent months – MONTHS! – petrified! Petrified!" He arched an eyebrow at the defacto representative of the very school that failed to protect his daughter. "How do we even comprehend that? My best friend's son, also petrified? Our little girl, the same girl we taught to ice skate, ride a bike, enjoy pancakes, trace her letters, and stood on my feet as we danced father-daughter dances on Sunday afternoons just because we could, was petrified! You tell me that! I AM HER FATHER! THIS WOMAN IS HER MOTHER! SHE IS OUR CHILD! What else could we do but forbid her to return!" He let go of his wife and swung a pointed finger at the three wizards. "And now we find out that not only has she defied us, but YOU ALL HELPED HER DO IT!"
Severus had no counter argument. There was nothing he could say that would exonerate the Affinity or Hogwarts from their collective failings. The level of emotional pain in the room blurred the edges of his vision and caused them to all pause for a moment. The mental images the man invoked of an idyllic childhood corrupted preyed on all of their souls. What was being asked of them, all of them, and yes, some more than others, was…trying. If this was the fallout, Severus could only imagine the magnitude of the initial confrontation between the girl and her parents.
The stately grandfather clock ticked away the minutes as heated words seeped down into the heirloom Aubusson carpet that blanketed the receiving room.
It was the woman who recovered her composure first. She dashed her tears from her cheeks and drew her hand underneath her nose as she sniffled. It was Justin who extended the woman his handkerchief. She accepted the square of monogrammed cloth from the sixteen year old boy with a quiet murmur of thanks. Her husband reached for her and wrapped a strong arm around her trembling shoulders.
With all the poise he learned from his mother and an aire of diplomacy reminiscent of Lucius, and blended with wherewithal to know when honesty would achieve a more desirable outcome than the application of the subtle manipulation of charm, Draco stepped towards them.
"She didn't choose us over you. She couldn't." The boy felt compelled to tell them that they weren't the only ones who suffered over the past five years. He spoke with first-hand knowledge for the one who wasn't there to speak for herself. "It tore her up. She pushed herself to the breaking point so that she wouldn't have to. Last year, we were there," he gestured to Justin, even though it was clear that he referred to others, "saw first-hand, when she-"
"Don't, Draco." Severus knew of what Draco was referring to and stopped his godson from saying any more about what happened that day. It was an awful moment that he himself had contributed, that nearly shattered the mind and soul of a young girl he'd sworn to protect. It took five of them, in addition to himself, to bring the girl back from the brink of utter surrender. The sobs that girl cried out, that moment of true darkness she experienced, was akin to one of his most desperate hours. It bound them, him to her, her to him, in a way that transcended the Affinity, teacher-to-student, or even guardian-to-ward. The events of that night were too…sacred…to be repeated to anyone who hadn't been in that room that night.
"She wouldn't have if you all just left her alone!" The mother wrapped her arms around her middle, her internal pain manifesting physically. Her nearly-whispered ragged plea encompassed the past one-hundred-forty-five months. "Why couldn't you just let us be?"
"Because it wasn't up to us." Severus found the calm within himself to reach out to the afflicted parents without blame, rancor or hollow platitudes. "She wouldn't let us go. You raised her so well… Her values, her definition of responsibility, her sense of duty, honor and capacity to… love-"
"And forgive." Draco added his own contribution to his litany.
Severus was a hard man, a difficult man, a man who lived a triple-faceted life, and yet, with these people, because of her, he exuded a certain kind of empathy he only reserved for a select few. There were those within the Affinity that he didn't regard with the same level of…deference…that he extended to the distraught parents.
"It's not your fault that she's such an extraordinary young woman; one who lives, loves, and, yes, exists, far above and outside her years."
Justin stepped forward until he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Draco. "Please, let us do what we're meant to do. Professor Snape, Malfoy and myself - we can find her. I promise that we can. We just need to know what happened so that we know where to start looking for her."
The two parents looked at each other. It was the man who turned on his heel. He embraced his wife, pressed a kiss to her temple, and apologized to her, not to the three wizards. "I can't. I can't stay here, with them. I can't…"
She nodded, understanding her husband's need to escape the turmoil. He'd already revealed so much, to make him stay would undo him. "Go on. I'll see you after they leave."
Good manners and homage to the daughter he sired dictated Severus, Draco and Justin nod at the man as he made to leave the room. It was a testament to the daughter he helped raise that he turned around and retook his place at his wife's side.
"It happened eight days ago. We haven't left the house since." She gestured to the Queen Anne furniture, indicating that they should all sit. She herself remained standing, as did her husband. The wizards remained on their feet as well, the two younger men took their cues from him and mimicked his slightly more relaxed posture. "She came home from school. Well, the school we thought she'd been too-"
"She was." Severus confirmed that the girl really did attend the Swiss boarding school.
"How?"
"We have ways of… She has the intellectual capacity to participate in…" His attempt at officiousness as a means to prevent his inner emotions from going on display failed him. He didn't like not having the right words immediately at his disposal. Severus summoned the fortitude not to look abashed as he fell-back on 'we're wizards for a reason'. "There are ways for someone to be in two places at the same time."
The woman stilled for a moment, and blinked. She classified his vaguely specific allusion into the same category as 'petrification'. "I don't know how to respond to that…"
"You were saying?" Justin prompted.
The woman resumed her deliberate pacing, another mannerism that could be traced to her daughter, as she admitted to events she'd rather have kept private. The woman didn't understand that his life, as well as others, was inextricably committed to the life of the missing young woman. They couldn't, nor wouldn't, sever their respective…attachments… any more than her parents could, or would, if ever the opportunity were manufactured or presented.
"We brought her home. Everything seemed normal. She was a little quiet as we left Heathrow, but we attributed that to end-of-term tiredness. Which was why Richard," she waved at her husband, "and I suggested that we have a quiet dinner at home rather than go out for dinner." She paused in her pacing and spoke more to him than the two teens. "About an hour later, I walked in on her as she was changing. I had bought this blouse for her…" She didn't like the fact that she felt the need to justify something that was an everyday occurrence – walking into her daughter's room unannounced – to any of them. Her grimace had everything to do with what she saw in her minds' eyes. "I walked in, she turned to answer me… That's when I saw it. I saw this vast, ugly, angry-looking purple scar! It stretched from here to here!" Charlotte placed one on her diaphragm and the other over her navel. "Of course I asked her about it!"
Richard braced his hands on the back of the antique settee. His head dipped towards his chest as his current thoughts and memories of that night aligned. Despite the angle, his gaze was squarely fixed on the three wizards.
"I heard them arguing. I walked into her room. I saw the scar." The wish that he'd reacted differently radiated from the man. Culpability tempered his tone as he silently recalled the things he said to his daughter. "Things escalated from there."
"It all came out." Charlotte glossed over the shouting match that must've taken place. Fresh tears rolled down her face. Avoiding all eye contact, she spoke so quietly that it was hard to hear her. "It all came out."
"By this time, somehow –"
"She ran from us and we followed." Charlotte owned up to the proverbial accelerant that consumed her family with the fires spawned from mutually exclusive righteous indignations.
"What started out as an emotionally-charged, make-us-understand-give-and-take-in-loud-voices in her room deteriorated into a full-blown cut-each-other-to-the-quick-go-for-the-jugular-line-in-the-sand screaming match on the back portico." Richard added.
"Sweet Salazar…" Draco looked to his godfather, verifying that each thought the same thing at the same time. His girl didn't 'do' ultimatums.
The husband scrubbed his face with his hand as the memory replayed itself in his mind.
"We were…. We were shouting at each other. The things we said… The accusations each of us hurled at the other." Richard's halting testimony proved he took no pride in the way he or his wife or his daughter had battled. "It was two against one, parent against child… She-I-us…" He looked to the woman beside him, then back at the other three persons in the room. "All of us were out of control. I…. I…"
"Sir – what did you do?" Equally as well-bred as Draco, Justin called on his heritage, training, and long-standing connection between his family and theirs to gently encourage the man to finish his tale even though the ending was a foregone conclusion.
"In the middle of it all, as she was screaming at us, she went on and on about how she 'had' to do what she had to do, and how she couldn't stop doing what she had to do…."
"It was awful… What we said to each other. How we said it." The wife confessed, knowing that absolution wasn't something she, or any other them, could give her.
"I made her promise…."
The three wizards inhaled sharply over Richard's latest four words. The ramifications for a witch or wizard to accept a promise…
Any shame or regret Richard had since conveyed evaporated. His whole demeanour hardened at their non-verbal insinuation.
"I made her promise that once she did what she had to do, she'd forget all about the Wizarding world, come back home, and live the life she was meant to live. I don't even think she realized what she agreed too, but nonetheless-"
The girl defied ultimatums with decorum when applicable, ruthlessness when necessary; her…talent…at negating anyone from having an upper-hand over her was beautiful to watch, her skill only hampered by her age and life experience. In the same vein, Severus knew she'd willingly enter into a one-sided deal with the devil himself if the end result meant she got what she needed. Again, such blatant regard for the mitigating consequences was also a result of her age and life experience. Her father was guilty of preying upon the chink in her proverbial armor: the very values that he himself had listed minutes ago.
"Sweet, merciful, Merlin!" Severus thundered. "Do you know what you've done!"
"YES! YES I DO!" He matched Severus in intensity and volume. "I'm not completely unaware of your world or the rules that exist therein! And YES! I'd do it again! I'd do what I had to do keep her!"
Charlotte swallowed convulsively, effectively ending Richard's unrestrained indignation.
"She… It was awful." Her hand rested at the base of her throat, eyes large and clearly reliving what happened that day. "I know I used that word already, but it truly was awful. So many things were said… Then, just as things peaked. She… Oh, Lord, help me!" She tilted her head to the vaulted ceiling, speaking more to her higher-power than to the men in the room, her voice barely more than a strangled whisper. "Things got really bad and she… she… she changed."
Anything else that was going to be said was immediately interrupted.
A Patronus, in the shape of striped tabby cat, bounded in through the open door that led to the aforementioned portico and nimbly stopped in front of the three wizards. Its back was arched and its tail and whiskers twitched with agitation.
"Severus – I need you here at my cottage right now!"
All three wizards prepared to leave. It was Justin who said their good-byes and gave his word to the distraught parents.
"We'll find her."
With a powerful CRACK!, Justin on one arm and Draco on the other, Severus Apperated.
His last thoughts before he and the two boys re-materialized was that he was about to collect a sizeable amount of money from several different witches and wizards.
He now possessed proof that a Hufflepuff could willingly tap into his inner Slytherin; at no point did the boy imply that the girl would be returned to either of her parents' residences.
Okay - so, a bit of tweaking; not a new chapter. I'm working on the next couple of chapter adn should have them ready to go by the weekend! Wish me luck!
Let me know what you think!
