I know it hasn't been a few weeks, per se, but I've been writing pretty steadily over the last two weeks that I felt like I was comfortable enough to begin posting the long-awaited (by some) full-length story I have been promising. I'm not going to lie, I have no set posting schedule and this story is not complete yet, so updates may be erratic. However, I will promise you right now that I WILL FINISH THIS STORY. Not just because I know there are people out there that are excited about it, but also because I could never live with myself if I didn't. It's going to be a long, but exciting ride for Severus and Zoe, so hang on.

Enjoy.

MetamorphmagusLupin

Reinforcements: Part I

The owl had arrived nearly a week before on a dreary day in late July and the girl simply had not stopped talking about anything else. The day, of course, had been inevitable. However, at just ten years old, Zoe had received her Hogwarts letter earlier than Severus had expected. It was true that her eleventh birthday fell on the exact day in which she would board the Express, but he had assumed the school governors would postpone her education for another year as was customary for children with birthdays in September.

Severus had strolled fully dressed into his study uncharacteristically early that stormy Tuesday in August to find Zoe already sitting in the lush, leather chair behind his large, dark-stained desk. She was still wearing her dressing gown over her long, white nightgown and her wavy, brown hair fell loosely and lank around her shoulders. She had her legs folded beneath her and she was leaning forward in order to see the type at the top of the page of the overly large tome before her. She looked up the moment he entered the room merely to acknowledge his presence but had immediately gone back to her reading.

"You're awake early," he had said as he walked around to peer over her shoulder at the book laid out upon the desk. It was an old Transfiguration text Severus had recalled buying in Hogsmeade in his sixth year at school.

"I couldn't sleep anymore," Zoe responded, looking up at the rain-soaked window behind her. "The thunder," she elaborated.

Severus nodded once, making his way around the desk to sit in one of the leather chairs at the front.

"Ollie."

Almost instantly, the tiny house elf appeared with a pop at his knee.

"Is Mister Severus wanting his breakfast served in the study this morning?" Ollie asked.

"Yes, please, Ollie. Zoe and I will both eat in here," Severus replied, noticing the grateful smile that stretched across his daughter's face at those words. "Just toast for me, and some coffee."

"Yes, Mister Severus. Will Miss Zoe be liking some eggs this morning or porridge?" the elf asked turning toward Zoe, though she could hardly see over the desk to the girl in the chair.

"Eggs please, Ollie, and toast as well. Oh, and orange juice, not pumpkin juice."

"Ollie is pleased to serve orange juice instead of pumpkin juice."

"Thanks, Ollie," Zoe said, smiling and turning back to the book as Ollie Disapparated with a snap of her fingers.

Severus looked up at his uncharacteristically studious daughter across the desk. Now that breakfast was squared away, they could have a nice chat before he would eventually need to send her out in order to get some work done.

"Do you understand anything in that book?" Severus asked, truly curious. "It's a N.E.W.T.-level read."

Zoe furrowed her brow, but didn't answer right away. When she came to the end of the line, she looked up and smirked sheepishly.

"Not really. But it's interesting…I think. Transfiguration is fascinating. I wish I could turn something into something else. Did you know that there are people who can turn themselves into animals? They're called Animagi and, well, I think that's brilliant!"

Severus nodded at Zoe's enthusiasm, but couldn't quite bring himself to smile.

"Yes, I seem to recall learning something to that extent," Severus said sardonically. Seeing the confusion on Zoe's face, he quickly adjusted his tone. "Perhaps you should ask Minerva the next time you see her about her knowledge of Animagi."

Zoe raised one eyebrow in bewilderment and then her entire face lit up with unmistakable comprehension.

"You mean…Minerva is a…"

Severus quirked a smile.

"Wicked!" Zoe cried. "I never knew that! What does she turn into?"

"I will not tell you," he said mock-defensively.

"Come on, Papa! Why not?"

"Who am I to keep your godmother from relishing in your excitement at seeing her transform for the first time? The effect would be ruined considerably if you knew what to expect beforehand."

"It isn't anything scary, is it?" Zoe asked.

Severus thought of the harmless, gray tabby cat with the square markings around its eyes he'd seen numerous times throughout the years and smirked.

"Horrifying," he replied.

Zoe giggled and went back to reading. At that moment, Ollie appeared on the desk holding a large tray full of the breakfast Severus and Zoe had requested.

"Careful, Miss Zoe, the eggs are hot," Ollie warned as Zoe grabbed for the plate of scrambled eggs in the center of the tray.

"I know. I'm not a baby," Zoe complained moodily.

Severus cleared his throat and sternly eyed his daughter as he took a sip from his coffee cup. Zoe flushed as her eyes whipped up to meet his before focusing back on the elf in front of her.

"Sorry, Ollie. I'll be careful, I promise. This looks great," she said and half-smiled at the house elf.

"Miss Zoe is a good girl," Ollie replied as she snapped her fingers and disappeared.

Zoe rolled her eyes and picked up her fork, digging it into the eggs.

"Ollie has been with us since you were an infant, Zoe. She does a lot to keep us living comfortably and you will treat her with her due respect. You will not talk to her that way again," Severus scolded his daughter.

"Yes, sir," Zoe mumbled, pushing the eggs around her plate in embarrassment, not looking at her father.

Severus watched his daughter sulk and bit into a piece of toast. When a movement at the window caught his eye, he looked up to see a barn owl soaring through the storm toward the window behind where Zoe sat. Finally, The Prophet, Severus thought as he rose to let the bird in, digging a few knuts from his pocket as he strode around the desk. Zoe watched his progress, but continued to nibble on a piece of toast.

"Anything for me?" she asked, watching her father dry the stack of letters and the rolled-up newspaper with his wand.

Anytime there was post, she asked this because she knew it was unlikely that anything was for her and she knew that it irritated her father to have to answer her. He raised a reproving eyebrow at her as he paid the owl and closed the window. Zoe grinned before taking another bite out of her toast and turning back to her plate on the desk.

Severus was surprised to see several pieces of mail accompanying the newspaper that morning. There were a few client correspondences rolled with the paper and the regular invitation to Malfoy Manor for brunch on Sunday as well as an envelope containing a statement of the most recent deposit into his Gringotts account from St. Mungo's, but near the bottom of the stack, a bit of green writing caught his eye. It was written on crisp, thick parchment and was sealed closed with the familiar crest of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry…and it was not addressed to him.

Severus could do nothing more than stare. Of course, this day was going to come. He knew it would come, but he wasn't prepared for it. He stared dumbly at the envelope then looked up at the child sitting in his chair eating scrambled eggs and he knew he couldn't send her to that school. It wasn't that he didn't want Zoe to have an education, but he was worried about the kind of education she would receive outside of her magical studies. He worried what she would learn from her peers about his sordid past and everything before and during the First and Second War. This was not good.

"Papa? What is it?"

Damn. He hadn't done a very good job of masking his conflicting emotions and now he'd alarmed the girl. Before he could so much as reassure her, Zoe had hopped off her chair and approached him. She reached out to take the mail from him and, in doing so, knocked the damnable letter from his grasp.

"Oops," she said, crouching down to pick up the fallen envelopes.

Severus watched as if in slow motion as a look of delight spread across his daughter's face upon reading and acknowledging the green, slanted writing of the largest envelope.

"Papa! It's my letter! My Hogwarts letter! Look, it says right here: Miss Zoe Snape, The Attic Bedroom, 38 Spinner's End, Cokeworth, Lancashire," Zoe's voice trailed off as she soaked in every word.

She seemed to stand there for the longest time not saying a word and Severus wondered what was going through her head. Suddenly, she looked up at him, an inquisitive frown furrowing her brow.

"But I'm only ten," she stated, excited.

"Indeed you are," Severus acknowledged, taking the remainder of the letters from his daughter and crossing to sit in the chair Zoe had vacated. He tossed them on the desk next to her half-eaten plate of eggs then propped his elbow onto the arm of the chair and rubbed his eyes.

Zoe, in the meantime, had ripped open the letter and was devouring its contents as she walked dazedly to the armchair across from her father and sat down. He watched her eyes rove over every word, her head nod up and down and her lips move silently over what Severus assumed was the list of books and supplies she would need for the upcoming term. With each item she read, her features lit up more and more as Severus's own thoughts became more and more apprehensive. What right did he have to feel so uneasy when he should be reveling in her excitement and happiness? Any normal father would do so. But Severus was not a normal father. He had a foul past and he held secrets from his daughter that, in a few short weeks, her peers would no doubt inundate her with the knowledge of.

"Ooh, look at all these books!" Zoe suddenly squealed. Severus lifted his anxious, black eyes to meet his daughter's joyous, royal blue and nodded, dazedly.

"I can't wait to get a wand! And new robes!"

Severus could no longer handle it. He needed some time to be alone and think about what he was going to do.

"Are you finished with your breakfast?" he asked the excited ten-year-old across from him.

Zoe waved her hand indifferently and nodded, still staring at the letter before her. Severus stood, walked around the desk and delicately, but firmly, took his daughter's arm to usher her from the room. Zoe barely seemed to notice she was being thrown out as she jabbered on.

"Oh! I must write to Minerva! And Scorpius. He's going to be absolutely green with envy! Do you think I could get a familiar? And maybe some of that color-changing ink and…"

"Yes, yes," Severus nodded distractedly. "We can discuss it later; I really must be getting to work…"

And with that, he pushed his daughter out into the tiny corridor and closed the door behind her. Severus stood for several moments with his hand on the door, his head bowed in a combination of relief and defeat. What was he going to do? He couldn't refuse to send her to school; she needed an education to learn to control her skills. Merlin knew her magical abilities were out-of-control as it was and he knew Zoe wouldn't be able to stand being schooled at home with a private tutor any more than she cared for him as her primary means of education now—she was far too sociable and, though abnormally bright, she was not nearly as academically disciplined as Severus would have liked. No, he would need to send her somewhere.

Resolved, Severus righted his posture, crossed back to his desk and took a quill, ink and parchment from the center drawer. As he scratched out the letter, he tried to ignore the notion nagging at the back of his mind that this was a rather feeble alternative to his problem and he highly doubted it would yield a simple solution.

Severus paced the tiny sitting room now, the letter he'd received that morning from Monsieur Moreau gripped tightly in his hand. He had truly thought that getting her in would be a long shot at best considering Zoe's age, but the new Beauxbatons Headmaster seemed genuinely pleased to take a young witch of Zoe's credentials and aptitude and had brushed off the fact that the girl would be a year younger than most of her contemporaries. The arrival of the letter, however, had done little to quell Severus's reservations and he now felt even more uneasy than he had before. After all, he had yet to break it to Zoe that she would not be going to Hogwarts and somehow he doubted she would resign herself to his alternative easily.

For the last half hour, Severus had tried to come up with a good way to break it to his daughter that the French school would be the institution she would attend. He had hardly come up with anything when Zoe strolled joyously into the room carrying a thick book under her arm. She smiled up at him and sat cross-legged on the small sofa, opening the tome to a marked page. Severus continued to pace. He needed to tell her.

"Do you think I could get an owl?" Zoe asked just then, looking up from her book. "It says here in Hogwarts: A History that the most common familiar throughout the record of the school has been an owl. But I don't know. I don't think I'd want one just because everyone else has one. But they're really smart and useful and, well, I don't think I'd want a toad or a cat."

Severus turned from his daughter to look out the window. In the last week, all Zoe had been able to talk about was going to Hogwarts, being Sorted, learning spells, buying a wand and brewing potions with other children. This was going to be difficult.

"I already have an owl," he informed her.

"I suppose, but you won't ever let me near Zeus."

Zeus.

Severus had never named his great horned owl because he thought naming animals was nonsense, yet in the last few years, Zoe had taken to calling the bird Zeus, King of the Owls. It was also true he had prohibited her from utilizing the owl partially because he never knew when he would need it for urgent correspondences with his clients, but also because the bird was rather temperamental; no doubt Zoe would find some way to ruffle its feathers and cause it to retaliate.

"I can't wait to see the Great Hall and all those floating candles! And the ceiling! Does it really imitate the sky outdoors?" Zoe asked and Severus could no longer ignore the issue. He had her acceptance letter for Beauxbatons in hand and he needed to get this over with.

He crossed silently to his daughter and took the book from her lap, closed it and set it placidly upon the table. This gesture caused Zoe to wrinkle her forehead in confusion, but Severus ignored her. He began to pace again, then finally settled for sitting in the armchair facing the sofa. He wanted to break this to her as gently as possible.

"Zoe, I have deliberated on this issue for the last week and decided that you will not be going to Hogwarts," he stated plainly.

Zoe's features fell immediately. Damn, Snape, you certainly made a mess of that, he chastised himself.

"What do you mean I won't be going to Hogwarts?"

"I mean that I received a letter from Monsieur Moreau, this morning," Severus began cautiously, "and, as the Headmaster, he believes you will make an excellent addition to the student population at Beauxbatons this autumn. He sounded very delighted to have you, in fact. Your aptitude scores were very encouraging, of course, and he was extremely interested to hear that your magical abilities were already so well controlled at your age…"

"But you always say I let my emotions control my magic when I should be using my brain," Zoe stated, wrinkling her brow.

Severus inclined his head slightly. "Yes, well, I wrote him that you are a very astute child, that you learn quickly and usually don't repeat your mistakes."

"You wrote him?" Zoe asked, her features growing even more perplexed and worse—somewhat betrayed.

"Yes."

"After I got my Hogwarts letter?"

Oh no. Turning his eyes away from his daughter, he once again nodded ever so slightly. Only when Zoe remained silent for several moments did Severus dare look up at her again. Coward, he thought.

"Zoe, I truly think that Beauxbatons—"

He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence, for at that moment, Zoe rocketed off the sofa and stood before him, her hands clenched in fury.

"But I don't want to go to Beauxbatons! I want to go to Hogwarts!" she raged, teeth clenched and voice resolute.

Severus tried to remain composed in the face of her disrespectful outburst.

"Well," he began as calmly as he could, "I believe that, all things considered, Beauxbatons would be a better fit for you as a student. You will be challenged academically and—"

"What have you considered?" Zoe cut him off again.

"Sorry?"

"You said, 'all things considered'. What have you considered?"

Severus froze. He had said that. The truth was that he had considered a great many things in the last week, the first of which was her reaction at the news he was a former Death Eater. He'd considered erasing her memory of ever receiving her Hogwarts letter. He'd even considered not sending her to school at all. However, none of these considerations had been what one could call feasible and Severus had dropped them all in order to focus on this one alternative option.

"That is none of your concern," he told her through gritted teeth then, taking a deep breath, he continued. "Suffice it to say that, as your father, it is my responsibility to act in your best interests and I say that you are going to Beauxbatons."

"But I don't want to go there," Zoe said in a low voice, growing visibly frustrated.

Severus blinked unconcernedly. "It is either there or nowhere."

At these words, the look in Zoe's eyes changed from a green of melancholy and confusion that she had harbored since the beginning of the discussion and began to blaze red-orange in anger and defiance.

She stomped one foot childishly on the floor and at the same instant, a gust of wind made its way around the room and the polished, volcanic glass paperweight resting on a small stack of parchment on the end table beside the sofa exploded. His reflexes still honed, Severus had pulled his wand from his robes at the change of her eye color and quickly cast a nonverbal Shield Charm around both him and Zoe to protect them from the shards of glass shooting in every direction. Though, he had the distinct impression that it was for his safety alone that he should be concerned.

"I WANT TO GO TO HOGWARTS!" she shrieked at him.

Severus had had enough. He stood, towering over her and scowled harshly down at his daughter.

"Well, you don't have a say in the matter and this petulance will not change my mind," he hissed. "My decision is final. Now, you will control yourself before you break something else."

The girl continued to seethe, the air whipping about the room, as books rattled menacingly upon the numerous shelves along the walls.

"Zoe Ophelia Elizabeth," Severus said slowly in warning, hoping the tone of his voice would convey to his daughter how much another uncontrolled magical outburst was unlikely to be in her best interest.

Zoe stood firmly in place glaring at her father, breathing heavily. As she knead her fingers into her palms, the radiating anger and unrestrained magic began to subside slightly as tears began to well up in her eyes instead. Then, without warning, she pushed past him and exited the room, stomping her way to the hidden doorway in the bookcase and all the way up the stairs, the gust of wind following in her wake.

Severus closed his eyes and sat dejectedly back into his armchair. To say that the conversation had not gone well would have been an understatement.

You are a foolish coward, Severus Snape, he thought pointing his wand straight up and Vanishing the glass rubble from all over the room with a single wave.

Zoe entered into her attic bedroom in a rage she had never felt before. Sure, her father had done things to anger her before but never in a million years had Zoe thought that he would keep her from attending school, or at least the school she wanted to attend. What was so wrong with Hogwarts? Minerva had said wonderful things to her over the years about the magical institution she headed and Zoe had always assumed Hogwarts was where she would go. Her father had gone there, after all, as had Minerva. Both of Scorpius's parents had too and Mr. Lupin and his wife and son and everyone else that Zoe knew. But no, her father was making sure that she would not be going.

She paced, fuming, back and forth across her small bedroom several times with her fists balled at her sides. After a minute or two, she paused in the middle and started to hop furiously up and down on the floor, pounding her feet into the wooden planks with as much force as she could muster. She wanted her father to know of her displeasure.

"I want to go to Hogwarts!" she seethed, still jumping. She wanted to scream it, but knew it would be of little use to do so, for she was quite certain that her father had already cast a Silencing Charm on the ceiling above him in order to tune out her tantrum. She hoped, however, that he would still feel the vibrations her jumping would cause.

After a few minutes, Zoe stopped pounding her feet into the floor and flung herself onto her bed. She knew that throwing a fit wouldn't get her very far anyway. It never did. And truthfully, she doubted her father was likely to tolerate her outbursts for much longer. After all, she had already completely obliterated the fancy paperweight he'd gotten last Christmas from his godson, Scorpius Malfoy, and she doubted it could be repaired.

It just wasn't fair. She'd longed to go to Hogwarts her whole life. Why would her father just decide out of the blue to send her elsewhere? Zoe may have been only ten, but she knew there had to be more to this than just what was being conveyed. In any case, he hadn't explained anything properly at all. He'd just said it was in Zoe's best interest and that Beauxbatons was a good school and that he'd "considered things", but that meant nothing to her. She wanted to know why.

She laid in her bed for the longest time—hot tears streaming down the sides of her face—and stared at the slanted ceiling of her bedroom. What could she possibly say to her father to make him change his mind? Her greatest argument was just that she wanted to go and that was feeble at best. In any case, he was unlikely to listen to her anyway.

Zoe lay there sulking for hours contemplating every possible solution. Twice she seriously considered running away to live with her godmother. Then at least she would already be at Hogwarts during the school term. That idea was quickly extinguished, however, as she felt it was too obvious where she would go and she figured her father would never allow it to happen. He would drag her back to Spinner's End in a Full Body-Bind if he had to. Nevertheless, Zoe knew Minerva wouldn't hinder her dreams as her father had.

"Minerva would let me go," she mumbled to herself, smearing a fresh wave of tears away from her cheeks and wiping her nose with her sleeve.

Suddenly, an idea wriggled its way into her brain and she sat bolt upright. Sweet Slytherin, why hadn't she thought of it sooner? Leaping off the bed and bounding across the room to the stairs, Zoe inwardly kicked herself for wasting so much time crying like a baby.

Descending the stairs as quietly as she could, Zoe peeked around the door leading from her bedroom and looked both ways down the short, first floor corridor. Though the summer sun had not completely set yet, it was well past dinnertime and the house was almost completely dark. Ollie had come up to see her earlier and told her that her father wished for her to eat with him, but Zoe had refused, claiming she wasn't hungry. No protest had come and Zoe assumed her father didn't want to start another row so soon, for he had allowed her to stay in her room and Ollie had returned soon after with a sandwich and a glass of pumpkin juice. She had only left the attic once all day—to go to the bathroom on the floor below—and Zoe had been grateful not to run into her father then.

Seeing that the coast was clear, Zoe sat down on the bottom step and pulled off her shoes. The floorboards would be creaky enough without them and she needed to be as stealthy as possible. She inched the door open and stepped out into the corridor, delicately tiptoeing in just her socks. She passed the door of her father's bedroom, saw that it was completely dark, and continued past the also-dark study to the stairs leading to the ground floor of the house. Lying down flat on her stomach, she peered down the stairwell at the end of which was the back of the bookcase door leading to the sitting room below. The door was halfway open and Zoe could see the glow of the fire and hear pages rustling as her father flipped through one of his many books.

Satisfied, she stood back up and backtracked into her father's study, closing the door quietly behind her. Once inside, she padded as softly as she could to his desk and pulled a spare bit of parchment from the middle drawer. She uncapped the ink well and grabbed for the handsome eagle-feather quill next to it. Then she paused. Her letter would need to be concise, but still convey her dilemma.

Zoe thought for a minute, keeping her ears vigilant for any sign that her father may feel inclined to move his reading to the study, then dipped the quill in the ink and started to write. It didn't take long to scribble out the short message. Zoe reread her letter once through and—satisfied with the wording—she replaced the ink lid and put the quill back into its holder.

Folding her note over twice, she looked up to the bookcase across the room where Zeus sat perched, his large, round eyes watching her every movement. Her father believed the great horned owl was dangerous for Zoe but as she gave a quiet whistle to the bird and it landed regally on the desk in front of her, Zoe smirked. Her father had no idea how loyal and pleasant Zeus had always been to her; not once had the owl snapped at her as he sometimes did his true owner. She looked around to the door a moment to look and listen for any sign of movement, then turned back to the bird and whispered to it.

"Zeus, this has to get to Minerva as soon as possible. I think she's probably at Hogwarts, but I'm not sure. You may need to go to Portree. Do you think you can find her?"

The owl gave a deep hoot and reached out with its beak, grabbing for the letter in Zoe's hand, which she happily relinquished.

"Excellent," she breathed as she crossed to the window and opened it.

Zeus immediately spread his great wings and glided to the windowsill and with one last, low hoot to Zoe, he soared out the window and into the dwindling light.

As she crept back up to the attic and changed into her pajamas, Zoe relaxed a little. Of course, she knew she was going to be in trouble for using her father's owl but she convinced herself that it would all be worth it if she were able to go to Hogwarts. Her plan had to work. She was in way over her head and she needed all the help she could get to convince her father that she belonged at the famous school.

Now, all she could do was sit and wait for her savior to come. Therefore, she picked up Hogwarts: A History—that Ollie had covertly retrieved for her from the sitting room—and flipped back to where she had left off and started to read.

Every time someone posts a review, a fairy comes back to life. At least that's the way I heard it...