Eye of the Dragon Hair of the Cat Chapter 2, a harry potter fanfic

Summary: [HG/SS] Hagrid bred some of his 'armless animals together to "help" the Potters defend themselves from the Dark Lord. It does not end as he hoped.

Beta Love: The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard

Warning: Graphic violence, Dementors, and Azkaban

Eye of the Dragon, Hair of the Cat

Chapter Two

Crackity Crack Fic of Crack by Corvus Draconis

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could,

they didn't stop to think if they should."

Dr Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

Roisinn pounced on the scurrying movement, her paws slamming down first as her mouth closed upon her victim—

"Eeee! Don't eat me!" a little voice squeaked.

Roisinn sat down, licking her snout with her orange tongue as she released her hostage.

The slobbered-on arachnid hastily groomed itself back into order, and its body poofed into extreme fluffiness. Multiple pairs of eyes glinted back at her.

They regarded each other with mutual wary curiosity.

Roisinn licked her paws and lightly bopped the spider on the abdomen.

"Eee!"

The spider skittered to the right.

Bop!

It skittered to the left.

Bop! Bop!

"Please don't eat me!"

Roisinn picked the spider up in her mouth and trotted away, the spider wriggling its legs in protest from in between her teeth.

"Well… I guess I'll come with you then—" the spider finally squeaked in surrender.

"Severus."

"Hn?"

"When did you gain spiders?"

"Hrm."

Severus looked over to where Roisinn was playing a rousing game of bop the spiders with a clawless paw. The clutter of fluffy, multi-coloured spiders was all squeaking in different tones, and he could swear he heard the tune Sovay squeaked out between them.

The spiders plucking strands of silk over a sounding board making it sound like a guitar only made the observation even more surreal.

Severus arched a brow. "To be fair, we started with just one, and she attracted— friends."

"She?"

"Thisbe," Severus said. "Her friends are— as of yet— unnamed."

A blue-grey spider skittered by, a small bucket stuck to its head. It clunked into a vase, and the flowers tipped out as they spilt onto the floor.

"'Cept for that one, "Severus said with a sigh. "That's Bucket."

The dragonbat yawned, all fangs and found himself to be the new and improved nesting bowl of one chimaera cubling and a clutter of fluffy arachnids.

Roisinn imitated his yawn, showing all her teeth just like he did.

Manfred touched noses with the cubling, and she squeaked, playfully whumping her paw into his muzzle.

"Careful, you'll end up with a mane," Severus said with a sniff.

"They are rather stunning," Master Morgan confessed. "My Pearl looks quite wonderful with one."

Snape regarded his master with something akin to tempered tolerance.

"I suppose."

"You don't think so?"

"I'm not allowed to think on such things."

Manfred guffawed. "I suppose you're correct. I would hate to have to murder my own apprentice for making googly eyes at my wife."

Snape shook his head sharply. "No."

"So you're saying that my mate is unattractive."

"NO!"

"So you HAVE been looking at her."

"Not like that!" Severus insisted, his mane standing on end.

Master Morgan chuckled.

WHAP!

A shimmering white bear paw swatted the teasing dragonbat upside the head. "Behave, husband."

Manfred made puppy eyes at his mate. "Aww."

Pearl gave her mate a quick kiss before exiting to the next room.

Severus shook his head as Roisinn bounded after her, toppling and sending the clutter of spiders flying off in many directions.

"Eeee!" they cried. "Wait for us!"

"Don't leave us here to be eaten!"

"We hate being eaten!"

"Will weave soft linens for safety!"

"Maybe a robe or two!"

"Or a dozen doilies!"

The clutter disappeared after their cubling.

Manfred scratched his neck with his wing thumb. "Who are we to question insecure and strangely adorable spiders here at the DoM of all places?"

Bucket bumped into Manfred's foot, the shiny silver bucket obscuring all of his eyes. He gave a sad squeak of distress.

Manfred picked the pail-cursed arachnid and popped the bucket off his head.

The spider looked at him with scared eyes. "Don't eat me!"

"No worries," Manfred reassured. "I'm not a spider-eater."

"Phew," Bucket replied.

"How is it you seem unnaturally attached to that pail?"

"It's a curse," the spider said. "A crazy person saw me and hit me with some sort of beam, and now every time I pass a bucket, it slams down on top of me. Always resizing just large enough to get stuck on my head. Sometimes my head and my abdomen." Bucket sighed heavily. "On the bright side, most things can't eat me through a pail."

Manfred rubbed Bucket's abdomen, and the spider let out a pleased thrum.

"Ooo, I like that."

The spider proceeded to make himself at home on Manfred's shoulder with a contented squeak.

"You're always making new friends," Severus said with a heavy sigh. "You're just as bad as Roisinn."

"As great as," Manfred said proudly.

"Debatable," Severus muttered.

Morgan chuckled. "You're still worried about your friend."

Severus frowned. "Obviously not my friend."

"That doesn't exactly erase the fact you thought she was," Manfred said.

"I can't believe she actually thought Roisinn was supposed to go with her as protection, even after all that happened. It bothers me that she would think just because Hagrid meant her for Potter that it would be okay to have her. She doesn't even know her." Snape curled his lips.

"That, and I think Her Ladyship would rather eat a pickled toad than being forced to cohabitate with anyone." Morgan looked towards the planter where a leaf had been ever-so-carefully chewed around the thorns. "Or even my poor thorny dragontail plant."

"Don't forget you have to sit your potion proof exam tomorrow," Manfred reminded. "It's one of the few times they don't even allow familiars into the place. Apparently someone, somewhere, used their familiar to cheat on an exam at one point, so now none of them are allowed in. Mind you, coming in with Roisinn, Zoë, and Gruffydd— and maybe a clutter of spiders— all at the same time would probably go over much as you'd expect."

Severus snorted. "Why they need me to prove I actually brewed the dragon pox vaccine potion seems a little short sighted considering I already did so many batches and taught others how to."

Manfred shrugged. "Normally they would take a master's word for it, but alas, someone is being a rather painful stick in the mud at the office. I think her name is Dorkass Umbitch."

Severus spewed his tea. "Dolores Umbridge?"

"Yeah, same thing."

Severus cleared his throat, knowing that his master was not the type to easily forget names.

"She's been sticking her grabby little hands into every regulation, showing a severe distaste for non-purebloods, children, beasts, and creatures of all kinds." Morgan wrinkled his nose.

"If she ever saw the DoM's true face, she'd probably explode," Snape said.

"Mmm. Quite probably." Morgan shrugged. "I'm about to after seeing her obnoxious rampaging pinkness causing havoc around the Ministry. Good thing our glamours are damn powerful. I'd imagine getting a good look at the likes of us would have her trying to make up all sorts of interesting new laws. Worse comes to worst, I can go out in an Unspeakable uniform and intimidate the living hell out of her without saying a single word."

Severus snorted. "You love doing that even without a reason."

"It's a gift," Manfred admitted without shame.

"How did you end up a dragonbat of all things? I can at least blame Roisinn, but what's your excuse?"

Morgan itched his ear with one wing. "Back when Pearl and I were both apprenticing under Master Kensington, he had another apprentice— Apprentice Moreau. He was working on his master's project, and was convinced that he could make a potion that could give you the best survival traits of animals without turning them into them."

"I'm guessing that went well," Severus said dryly.

"It exploded when he found out he was allergic to bear dander." Morgan wrinkled his nose. "He sneezed into the cauldron at the most critical stage. Pearl and I, Jackson, Giles, Angus, and Rebecca— we all turned into something dragon plus one. Poor Jackson is probably the worst off of our lot, being a ruddy dragon-shark."

"That's not exactly something you can comfortably sit in a lounge chair as," Severus observed. "At least he wasn't a hagfish?"

"That would be, arguably, even worse," Morgan admitted.

"At least he's currently enjoying the aquatic highlife guarding the waters around Azkaban," Morgan added. "If there is such a thing as a highlife guarding Azkaban. He claims he loves it."

"Whatever happened to Apprentice Moreau?" Severus asked.

"Rumour has it he became a unique, highly virulent strain of dragon pox and was locked away in containment in a highly secure research lab in the very deepest bowels of the DoM. If that's true, I don't know for sure. I tend to think he's actually a dragon-flea, locked up for pretty much the same reasons," Morgan said. "Gods only know what hideous thing he might be a carrier of."

Severus suddenly went very still. "Master, what if it was his work that went into that potion that Hagrid somehow got his hands on. Set all of this into motion?"

Morgan hrmed. "Magical blood potions have existed for a very long time, especially for wealthy pureblood families who wanted to ensure their wives or husbands were of pure blood or wanted their adoptees to share the same blood. Moreau did not intentionally use human blood as a binder. He was far more interested in beasts and their natural resilience. His work was hardly repeatable, as his own unique body chemistry went into that sneeze. It is far more likely that this Hagrid person got his hands on an old pureblood bloodline insurance potion. I can only guess how. Those are both incredibly rare and hideously expensive. They are not just idly given away. Unless—"

Morgan slowly rubbed his chin. "Someone in the family was trying to sabotage it from within and ensure no one outside the blood could join their family. Hard to say. I can't imagine any pureblood family being happy with either that action or the fact they have a familial relationship with a chimaera."

Severus set down the paper he was reading. "Any reason sounds overly complicated to me."

"Unfortunately, yes," Manfred replied with a brief roll of his eyes. "Blood purity and blood magic have always been rife with such drama."

"Much like the war— I'm definitely on the hit list for the blood supremacists, now." Severus frowned. "Even with the glamour, I doubt such people cannot simply read the Prophet and learn all about the extensive trial."

Manfred nodded. "In Slytherin, you must have been treading a delicate line between acceptable prejudice and real."

Severus winced. "My hatred for my drunken bastard of a Muggle father helped me fit into the common attitude towards Muggleborns, yes, even at the expense of my own heritage."

"She's changed you."

Snape tilted his head. "More like— given me a much-needed wake-up call, I think. I was convinced the only way to escape my father was by smashing him into the dirt where he belonged."

"Many prejudices start with one slight," Manfred said slowly. "Much like cancer, it spreads little by little until it grows entirely out of control. It might even start out with perfectly justifiable reasons, but they feed on our fears and our hatreds— our own hidden insecurities. The outcome is often still misguided, but that kind of hatred is what drives wars and feeds the fear that keeps the war engines going. Look at that ruddy fool, Abraxas Malfoy. He refused any and all that he termed to be dirty, impure treatments, and he may have died still firmly believing in his delusions. The question is, does the rest of the family share them? Or has his death caused a kind of epiphany like Roisinn did for you?"

Snape furrowed his brows. "I haven't spoken to Lucius since graduation. It is hard to say. Occasionally, I see him in the Ministry, but he either does not see me or is intentionally trying not to."

Manfred nodded. "He is very much in the public eye— for that reason alone I suspect that if he was more sympathetic, he could not dare to show it. There is, of course, the chance that he is much as his late father was. It would be hard to say for sure."

"As much as you probably don't want to care about this," Morgan added, rubbing at his itchy chin, "I would be more concerned about your former classmates in Azkaban. Most prefer not to think of such things, but they put quite a few people away while in training— people who, unlike you, have absolutely nothing to lose in murdering them should the opportunity arise."

Snape closed his eyes. "I find it hard to scrape up any modicum of pity for the likes of Potter," he said. "Especially after he both saved my life and then tried to take me out himself. Seven years of being constantly stalked and tormented hasn't exactly improved my opinion of him either."

"Even greater people than us would find that quite difficult, I fear," Manfred observed. "Most view the deeds that result in one landing in Azkaban as unspeakably sordid affairs, not fit to be talked about even behind closed doors. Those who end up there find that nothing they do can possibly be seen as worse, and who bloody cares if the criminals off each other in there to the public's favour?"

Snape grunted. He wrinkled his nose as he felt the inner tug of the old life debt— the curse of his life being saved by one of his most hated enemies.

He frowned harder, his snout wrinkling into a snarl and then relaxing. "Very well, Master. I will require a day off."

Manfred nodded. He sipped his tea and sighed. "You are already far more than they will ever be, Severus. What you do now can only prove it— or leave it hidden away in solitude."

The Dementors, James realised, were getting highly irritated by the lack of a satisfying richness to their feedings. Perhaps, they had savoured his pain and agony more than the others. They didn't bother him if he wallowed in a pit of despair, but the moment he thought of Lily or the sheer happiness he would feel while wringing Snivellus' scrawny neck—

But when the cell door opened, James realised that the Dementors were actually holding back. The cold wasn't as frigid, and he had… guests.

"Tch," a gravelly voice tutted. "How the mighty have fallen off their shining broom of Gryffindor righteousness."

A few figures made their way into James' cell, and while they were wandless, they didn't seem to think that was a problem.

James' eyes widened as he realised they were pulling out wands made of what appeared to be either the bones of small animals, desiccated celery stalks, or overly-salted carrots wrapped in human hair and some sort of wispy, unnatural-looking thread— makeshift enough to serve a crude purpose, should they actually work.

"Crucio!"

James fell backwards, slammed hard against the far wall as his body arched in agony. His spine bowed and felt as if his spine would break right then and there.

Yes, apparently, the crude wands were good enough. Maybe it would never be enough to power an Apparate out of the heavily-warded Azkaban, but it would be and was just enough to send out an effective Cruciatus curse.

The makeshift wand shattered after one use, but James' torture was far from over. Each of his unwelcome visitors apparently had a one-use wand specifically for his pleasure.

"Crucio!"

"CRUCIO!"

James screamed out in agony until his scream became utterly silent, his vocal cords making no sound as he continued on in a soundless wail.

Even when the agony eased, if but for a moment, the kicking began, and even the shoeless heels connecting to his abdomen triggered blossoming pain beyond what he believed possible.

They grabbed his solitary sheet, and tied it around his ankles, dangling him upside down from the singular sconce. The fire burned, unable to set anything to flame due to the enchantments, but it was still hot— the sole source of heat in the chilled cell.

James felt his feet writhing in agony, and he frantically strained to free himself.

His vision was getting blurry. He couldn't focus. He felt the tip of a stone-sharpened by repeated grinding against Azkaban's hard and despair-soaked floor—press against his neck. The tip pressed in, drawing a bead of blood as it started a slow drag against his flesh.

"We'll make you bleed slow, Potter," one voice growled lowly. "We may never leave this place, but you'll pay in blood and pain for your crusades against our families."

"I was never a Dark wizard," another said, "but I decided, since you made me out to be one, I would become one just to make you bleed."

"You left my wife and son without a father."

"I don't really have a reason but to see you writhe."

"Yes, we really don't need reasons in here of all places. We are already damned."

"We may disagree on things, but we can agree that you—oh, you deserve every last bit of pain we can give you."

"Thankfully, the Dementors seem to agree with us."

The group gathered around James, their malevolent auras wrapping around him as surely as a noose.

James coughed, blood trickling down his mouth, across his cheek, and into his eyes as he dangled helplessly.

"Lily," he whispered, his hazel eyes going glassy.

"Callin' out to his dirty Mudblood whore," one of the voices sneered.

"Pathetic."

"Couldn't even keep his wee little todger in his pants until after Hogwarts."

"Well, I hope his child grows up thinking its father was a bloody Azkaban flunkie who couldn't even survive the stress."

"It's going to be fun when we see her visit to find all of her dreams crushed," another voice gloated. "You are hardly an innocent in this, are you, Potter?"

James made a whimpering wheeze in the back of his throat.

"We can take off his bollocks," another suggested with a disturbing leer. "He won't be needing 'em anymore, eh?"

"Why stop there?"

The group of convicts startled, spinning to see a tall, slim figure dressed from head-to-toe in relentless black, a goblin silver "collar" shining around his neck.

"A warden!"

"There are no wardens, you blithering ninnyhammer! Get him! We outnumber him!"

They rushed him, but his form shimmered and disappeared. The prisoners toppled over each other like dominoes. The one with the shank attempted to make good on his promise and shove it deep into Potter's neck, but a venom-loaded stinger suddenly thrust through his back and up past his ribcage. A maned snout materialised in the gloom as a sickly yellow-green fluid dripped from each wickedly sharp yellowed fang.

A miniature maned snout materialised from the larger beast's shoulder and belched a bright orange cloud into the wizard's face before leaping onto his face, wrapping around it like an overzealous octopus, and buried her stinger into the man's neck. He fell backwards onto the floor, convulsing as venom and magic cloud worked together to devastating effect.

She looked up to the larger beast, perhaps for approval of her accomplishment.

The black-clad beast picked her up, cuddling her close as she scrambled onto his shoulder and "vanished" in a blur.

The group of prisoners scrambled up and attempted to rush him yet again, but the chimaera side-stepped, his tail whipping out like a lash and tripping every one of them. His wing flipped out and slapped them collectively upside the head, knocking their skulls together with a tink, tonk, dink, and a donk.

A shadow moved behind him as he lay one paw on the nearest wizard's neck to check for a pulse.

Scrreeeckkkkk!

One enthusiastic cubling schlucked his face in a suctioned, gecko-sticky embrace to the face as her stinger burrowed deep into his throbbing carotid artery.

The man fell to the floor, twitching spasmodically.

"Hey there, wee lassie," the familiar gruff voice of Alastor Moody said as he opened his hands to her.

The cubling perked her ears to the Auror's familiar tones and happily pounced him, wrapping herself around his head and burrowing her stinger into his mane with a loving croon.

"Yes, yes. lass, I love you too," Moody muttered, prying her off his face so he could see. "Savage, get Potter down from that sconce and get him over to Mungo's. Proudfoot, Beauchamp, transfer these ruddy ingrates to the high-security holding cells at the Aurory. McFadden, I want you to scan and save memory threads of every cell they escaped from, and get Grissom and Mayhew to secure every single cell, one by one, on this entire floor. We'll secure all the others one by one as we get more of our people over here."

"Severus."

The black chimaera snorted, looking up.

"Good work. Take Our Fuzzy Lady here and go debrief with the Head Boss of Us and Master Morgan."

Severus nodded silently and extended his arms to Roisinn.

The cubling chirred unhappily, not quite done hugging Alastor's face.

Alastor snuggled the cubling, rubbing her snout and gently prying her off himself with a tttthhhk noise. "There you go, my Lady. I'll see you later."

Roisinn swung her tail down and thumped into Severus' arms, wrapping her tail around his maned neck and anchoring herself with her stinger.

A team of green-robed healers came in, each carrying a Patronus lantern on a and wearing the distinctive goblin-silver collars that allowed them to pass through the formidable wards of Azkaban. They worked with Savage to stabilise James Potter's body as quickly as possible.

"He's going to live," the one healer finally said. She placed four glowing stones around him, activating them with a touch and trace of her finger. "The transport-ward beacon is stable. Let's Apparate him out."

"Four, three, two—"

CRACK!

They were gone.

Azkaban Inmates Attempt to Murder Imprisoned Potter Scion,

Two Dead

A group of Dark wizards that had been sent to Azkaban for war crimes involving the rise of You-Know-Who, attempted to maim and murder former Auror Trainee James Potter.

The prisoners, who had managed to craft wands out of found materials and leftovers from their meal trays, accosted Potter in his own cell and used these wands to torture him before resorted to physical violence and threats of worse.

Mr Potter was found beaten and hung upside down from a room sconce with evidence of being inflicted with multiple Cruciatus curses. He remains in critical condition at St Mungo's.

The prisoners that organised and participated in the revolt are being retried for their latest crimes before the Wizengamot on Wednesday morning, and they are set to be transferred to Nurmengard to serve the remainder of their sentences.

Additional renovations are currently being implemented at Azkaban prison, along with a new policy involving the charming of uneaten food items to banish themselves to a food disposal facility after a pre-set time to prevent prisoners from using food to craft any new hedge-wands.

Dementor guards will now be supplemented by a rotating group of Auror wardens who will be shifted in and out on a regular basis. Cells will be carefully examined and changed out regularly, and new improved magic-dampening rune wards will be engraved and set to add to the established ones.

Rumour has it that a few cases that sent certain persons to Azkaban are now being re-opened after an investigation into the incident at the prison revealed that some of those involved had been sent there on personal prejudices, assumptions and past deeds rather than facts and may instead be the victims of a miscarriage of justice. Whether this was due to a deliberate misrepresentation or manufacturing of information or simply the result of a shoddy, substandard investigation., we at the Prophet will be closely watching these retrials with great interest and will report the results to you as they are made available.

James awoke painfully and felt the thrum of powerful wards on the bed on which he lay. He looked around, and noticed the absence of the scent of salty sea air and caught the soft hint of grass and leaves mixed with potions and disinfectant.

His father sat in a nearby chair with a Prophet in his hands. He folded it and looked at him. "Son."

"Father."

"Not content to leave trouble behind you, hrm?" his father said. "You would have died had it not been for your friend."

James blinked, confused. "Sirius saved me?"

"No," Fleamont Potter replied with a stifled yawn as a house elf popped in with a much-needed tea tray. "That talented young potioneer from the Ministry. Saved your mum's life and my life as well. Saved your wife and the baby too. From the dragon pox. The baby dodged quite a curse for sure. Lily's been through a bit of an ordeal these last few weeks. When we got sick, she was exposed too, and she unknowingly spread it to numerous other people at Gringott's, Diagon Alley, and the Ministry before they realised she was a carrier. Healer Paddington at the Ministry and Healer Steele here at Mungo's told us that we are all exceedingly lucky to be alive. If he hadn't recognised the symptoms, we'd all be dead— maybe half of Wizarding Britain too. Old Abraxas Malfoy wasn't quite so fortunate and ended up kicking the broom. A few of the old families are a bit less now than they had been. We're still here, though, thanks to your friend."

"Dad, I don't know any potioneer from the Ministry."

"Don't be silly, James," his father answered, sipping his tea. "He's the newest Apprentice of the Master Morgan. People would often bring their children into the Ministry to pass him by just in the hopes that he might find them promising."

James was silent.

"Your mum once tried to get him to take an interest in you. Dressed you up very nicely and paraded you out at the market. You knocked over an entire fruit display of mangoes and a crate of papayas as well. You didn't exactly make a good impression with fruit bits and juice all over your face and hands. Your poor mum was utterly mortified, of course."

"He's a remarkably commanding figure, your friend," Fleamont went on. "Such fathomless black eyes and a large Roman nose. He looks not unlike your great-great-grandfather, Hardwin. Same focused glare, just like his portrait, hah. Ancient Roman name too: Severus."

"SNIVELLUS?! You've got to be joking me, dad. There is no fucking way that bloody SNIVELLUS saved anyone in my family!"

Fleamont's jaw tightened in anger and he sat up much straighter, his hazel eyes flashing. "Now you listen here, and listen well son," he snapped. "That fine young man saved all of our lives. Saved your life as you were being set up to die in Azkaban. He saved me, your mum, your wife and your unborn baby. If you can't put two and two together and figure out precisely what that means, then I have to wonder if you actually learned anything in that school."

James' face reddened. "You need to get checked out! You could've been poisoned by that slimy git!"

"Don't be ridiculous, son," Fleamont said, giving James a narrow-eyed glare of rapidly dwindling patience. "The very best healers in Mungo's have assured us that we're the healthiest we've ever been. They've all worked very hard to save most of magical Britain. He could have very easily pulled on life debts to every family."

James' head jerked up. "Life debt?"

"Yours, however, was right there out front. But he said that he didn't want it. He said if I wanted to know why I should ask you about one particular full moon night during your sixth year. What happened?"

"It was nothing, dad," James said, looking shifty. "I just got him out of, uh… a bit of a sticky situation, that's all."

"Don't forget that I've known you all your life, James. I always know when you're lying, and I knew when you stole from me too," Fleamont said pointedly.

James' eyes widened.

"I had always hoped that you'd eventually get all the nonsense out of your system and come back like the prodigal. The trial just seemed to confirm to your mum and I that we'd let you off far too easy. We should have brought the hammer down so much sooner. Questioned you sneaking out the upstairs window on your brooms with that sneaky Black chap. We didn't, and that was our failing—" His father narrowed his eyes at him. "But our personal failings were not the only ones. We may have spoiled you terribly—"

"Dad—"

"But you made your own choices, son, and your mum and I had a very long talk with Mr Dumbledore after you were sent to Azkaban." Fleamont sighed. "Seems my family cloak found its way into Dumbledore's custody. Don't really remember ever letting you take it. See, the cloak will always come back to me since I never gave it to anyone. Imagine his surprise when it floated to my hand."

James' father steepled his fingers. "I do not know what punishment is most appropriate for you, son. You are a grown man, now. You have a wife and an unborn son who both rely on you, yet you are now unemployed and unemployable— you have no honour, and your sentence spans a decade. You have shamed us and your wife— and Lily herself has managed to draw the ire of quite a few families, albeit indirectly, by unknowingly infecting them with dragon pox and even breaching the security of the Ministry."

"Yet," Fleamont continued inexorably, "Severus Snape proved himself to be a most gracious and honourable young man, and I think you should think on that a while before you dare refer to him by that childish, disgusting nickname. As it is, now that you are awake, I am going to Gringotts to transfer the rights for Sleekeazy's to our saviour. It is the very least I could do."

"But, Father—"

Fleamont Potter stood up. "I am glad you are alive, my son, but right now, I cannot even stand to look at you. You mum will be here a bit later to check on you."

With that, Fleamont Potter swept from the hospital room in a flurry of pewter silk robes.

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Chii'rrrk!

Roisinn purr-wiggled into Fleamont's lap as he signed the papers in front of Head Goblin Hasterfang.

The goblin was trying to keep a straight face but wasn't quite successful. Roisinn had charmed her away across every bank table, run off with four out of ten quills, and stolen three of the lunch sarnies, and relieved them of an entire jar of goblin-made sour cherry jam.

No one was complaining— especially not the goblins sporting gloriously fluffy yet still intimidating manes.

"Hey there, little lass," Fleamont cooed.

Roisinn wiggled her little bum and wrapped her stinger tail around his wrist, using her wings to flap and whap his face playfully. He tickled her belly, and she gave him a gentle puff of purple and gold sparkles to the face. After it dissipated, Fleamont sported a new bright white mane with a halo of gold-green sparkles.

Fleamont signed the parchment in front of him, pouring the sealing wax onto the contract and pressing his signet ring into it. Severus did the same, only the enthusiastic cubling pressed her paw into the warm wax too, getting her pads imprinted into the cooling seal along with Snape's imprint.

The overseeing goblin pressed his seal into poured wax and signed below it, earning himself a paw to the face and a wing about the head. His thick "mane of acceptance" protected him from her exuberant expressions of love.

"The trust will remain in place for the child when he is of school age, during which withdrawals will be allowed for schooling, clothing, supplies, health needs, and a personal stipend each week. Once their N.E.W.T.s have been sat with an achievement of A and better, the trust will accessible in its entirety. If by some stroke of misfortune, he is beset by poverty, the trust will be able to be accessed for necessities of life to be supervised by Fleamont and Euphemia Potter, and if they are unavailable, then Severus Snape."

Mrrrkk! Hiss!

The cubling lashed her tail back and forth.

"And my Lady Roisinn," the goblin corrected.

Roisinn, appeased, purred loudly in response. She forgave the goblin's unintentional blunder by rub-bumping up against him, gently thwapping her stinger into his side.

"Thank you for your kind consideration, Severus," Fleamont said warmly. "I know you did not have to set aside anything for a child that is not yours."

"The child is but an innocent, even if the parents could have made— far better choices all around."

Fleamont and Severus shook hands. "Thank you so much for what you've done for our family, Severus," he said. He patted him on the shoulder. "And for what you didn't do, as well."

Severus' lip quirked slightly. Then he nodded his head briefly in acknowledgement before the goblin clapped his hands and ordered a formal luncheon to be served to seal the dealings with fine food and drink and convivial company.

Harry trembled as he staggered to the place where his best female friend had pushed him off to face his destiny.

"Go, Harry!" Hermione had yelled. "We'll cover your back!"

"We—?"

Severus Snape stood beside Hermione, a stream of blood trickling down his neck and his wand levelled to cover Hermione's back. Hermione, her sides heaving with the strain and mounting exhaustion, struggled to remain standing up straight. Snape stood as a solid, powerful presence behind her, and she seemed to draw in strength from his reassuring proximity.

They moved seamlessly, and at that moment, Harry realised everything he had assumed was just one more blindness.

Hermione gazed into the potion master's eyes, and Harry saw something flicker across the dour man's face.

Harry could feel the pull of strong magick in the ground beneath his feet, swiftly drawing toward them.

"Run, Harry," Hermione mouthed, her brown eyes filling with liquid fire.

Severus used his wand to slice his arm directly across his Mark, and blood dripped, and the surge of magic flared even greater.

Hermione's hand wrapped securely around his arm, her fingers closed around it. "Ad impediendum motum per marcam."

Harry ran towards Hogwarts as the nova of magic spread outward. Death Eaters were falling around him, clutching their arms as a strange, crippling paralysis took each one, leaving them open to being dealt with by the opposing side. The unmarked started to waver in their resolve, attempting to flee.

He saw Molly turning Bellatrix Lestrange into atoms— it was all he could describe it as—as many more fell. The tide was turning all around him, and he knew what he had to do: find Tom and bring the war to an end.

He would confess, much later, that he didn't remember exactly what happened between finding Tom Riddle and finally facing him one-on-one. There was falling and flying together in a fierce battle of wills. The final spell seemed to go on forever, the rush of magic as he felt Nagini meet her end, and the feel of his own power finally gaining ground against Tom's malevolent roiling Darkness.

By the time Tom's body had transformed to a man-shaped mound of oily grey ash, blowing away like so much dust in the wind, Harry's overwrought brain decided to go on holiday as he crumpled into a heap, his body somehow ending up curled in the foetal position.

Harry barely even registered the significance when the cheering began.

There were cheers erupting amidst the anguished wailing, joy and grief mixing together creating an emotional cacophony. But Harry was far too weary to pay attention. Was it over? Was it finally done? Was Tom Riddle really vanquished, this time for good?

Harry vaguely heard Ron and Molly wailing too, but his exhaustion was soul-deep. It could wait.

"He can't be dead! He just can't be!" Molly wailed.

"I can fix this," Ron said.

"Ron, what the hell are you doing?"

"Fixing this!"

"What is that?"

"People think I don't pay attention to stuff, but I do," Ronald snorted.

Harry grunted. What was he hearing?

Then he heard someone coughing weakly.

"Fred!" George cried. "I thought you were dead!"

"Fred! OH FRED!" Molly wailed, bursting into tears of relief. "Thank, Merlin!"

Something itched and niggled at Harry's brain.

He'd dropped the Resurrection Stone in the forest—

Hadn't he?

Wait, no.

He hadn't.

"Take this, Hermione. I need you to make sure no one ever finds it, Can you do that for me? If something goes wrong— maybe it will help you."

Hermione's expression was dour, but she nodded in agreement. "Of course, Harry."

"What?! No! Think of what we could do with it!" Ron protested.

"Dumbledore gave it to me, Ron," Harry said. "I need her to make it disappear, and you two need to get back to the castle. This is between me and Tom."

"Don't do this, mate," Ron protested. "Just think of what we could do with that!"

"No, Ron. It wouldn't be right. Remember the story? It drove the second brother mad. It was never meant to be kept in the hands of the living. None of the Hallows were." Harry set his jaw. "I have to go. And Hermione— thanks."

Hermione nodded grimly and headed off into woods.

Harry's weariness started to lift as he realised Hermione and Snape had been the ones to give him the opening he needed to take care of Tom Riddle, once and for all. Then he'd given her the resurrection stone to dispose of.

How in Merlin's name had Ron managed to get ahold of it?

He quickly staggered to his feed, running toward the Shrieking Shack where he had last seen Hermione and Snape making their stand.

"What did you DO, Ron?!"

"Saved my brother."

"At what cost?"

Harry stared at the bodies of the dead lay scattered around the shack. The walls of the shack were demolished as evidence of something large and angry had pushed its way in. Severed limbs of a great beast littered the ground as ichor dripped from the walls. Hermione and Snape were entwined together in death, the huge, vicious-looking stinger of some great, unknown beast having burst through their chests.

They had not died quietly—

Harry recognised the signs of Sectumsempra all too well.

Their bodies were utterly impaled— back to back— as he had last seen them standing to cast the spell that would allow him to face Voldemort unchallenged by his minions. Weakened by their combined effort to help Harry, they hadn't had much left to face the sudden attack of some unexpected beast—

What was it?

It was more terrifying than anything he had seen in the Tri-Wizard tournament— far larger than that bloody blast-ended skrewt or the Sphinx, even with its head laying in sections on the floor of what remained of the shack. For a moment, he saw them dangling in the air, impaled as clear as if he'd been there. The scene was beyond ghastly— a remnant from having used the Resurrection Stone before facing Tom the first time.

A freckled hand moved into the frame, yanking the beaded bag from Hermione's belt. It ripped, tearing open and all the contents came flowing out to soak in the spreading pool of blood.

Two fingers picked up the stone, leaving the rest untouched. "Fred is worth way too much to just let this rot away somewhere. Not like you need it anymore. Sorry, but our Fred was meant to live. And you and the greasy git here? Ugh, disgusting."

Harry's head jerked up as Hagrid's outraged wail broke the vision.

"Whut? NO! Ballsbridge would never hurt 'Ermione! He would protect them, he would!"

"Rubeus Hagrid, you are under arrest for the murders of Hermione Granger and Severus Snape," an official voice— Kingsley's?—said. "And for the illegal breeding of dangerous magical creatures without a permit."

"He was on our side," Harry cried brokenly, crumpling next to the pair as he tentatively touched Hermione's small, cold hand. "They were the ones that made our victory possible."

"Kingsley," Harry said grimly, his voice barely a whisper. "Hagrid may have bred the beast, but it had help getting here."

"What are you doing, Harry?" Ron blurted.

"I gave the Resurrection Stone to Hermione to protect it. You were the only other person who knew," Harry said, tears in his eyes. "Then, not long after, Fred miraculously comes back from the dead. There is only one possible way that could have happened, Ron."

"Wot, you want Fred dead?"

"Of course not!"

"Then stop talking, Harry!"

"Hermione and Snape are dead!"

"And Fred is alive!"

A piercing shriek came from Hogwarts, and they all went running— it was Molly's scream.

When they came to a halt, Molly was wailing as Fred and George were locked in a stranglehold together. Both were unmoving.

"H-he," Molly choked out. "F-Fred said he wanted George with him! A-and— and—" Molly wailed and sobbed over the still bodies of her twin sons.

"N-no! I fixed it! I FIXED IT!" Ron screamed, falling to the ground beside his dead brothers.

For a moment there was only the sound of his hysterical keening as he rocked back and forth, the last shreds of his sanity giving up the ghost.

Harry had Hermione and Snape laid to rest together, just as they had died. Determined to not permit a tragedy like this to ever happen again, he buried them with the Cloak and the Wand and the stone that had been retrieved from Fred's stomach.

He had the coffins charmed unbreakable and sealed without a seam, with their headstone proclaiming, "The Price Was Too Great, Let No One Part Those Who Gave Their Lives That We Might Live. May Death Find Them Worthy Equals."

Harry finally made his weary way home to sleep, but the very next morning, the old squib gravedigger reported having seen a skeletal figure standing over the sealed coffins. When Harry arrived at the scene, the heavy stone sarcophagi were gone— the bodies of Severus Snape and Hermione Granger had vanished with them.

All that remained was a was one marble headstone that read: United in death, reunited in life. Returned to the past to put the future to rights.

Etched in shimmering aether was the symbol of the Deathly Hallows.

James lay on his spartan cot at the Gringotts dormitories. The mattress was comfortable, oddly enough, but it was a small bed. Even his bed at Hogwarts had seemed better. He fingered the goblin silver collar around his neck— the mark of his sentence.

No magic for the next ten years.

The goblins had, begrudgingly, given James a job cleaning up after the vault dragons— a job that required the utmost attention to detail lest you lose your life. The dragons trusted no one, or so it seemed.

Since Azkaban was a death sentence for him due to its inhabitants wanting him dead— even after the original attackers had been moved to Numengard— the only option he had was hidden away and work off his debt to society.

Still, the goblins at least provided him a place to sleep that wasn't the floor, clean (if very drab) clothing, and three meals a day that didn't taste like it had the soul sucked out of it.

It was clear that none of the goblins trusted him.

Once a week, provided he did nothing to revoke the privilege, he was allowed a visit from his wife, and Lily ran both hot and cold in his presence. Her once unshakable faith in his being on the "right" side had turned into a trembling uncertainty.

She, too, was suffering as a pariah— a dragon pox Lily— who may not have been the start of the infection, but unwittingly spread it to a great number of people from Gringotts to Diagon Alley.

Still, if she hadn't gone to see Snivellus— which she claimed was about attempting to convince her former friend to advocate for James' forgiveness and release— the pox could have killed his parents and quite possibly Lily and his unborn baby.

What actually happened after she went, however, had been utterly Obliviated from her mind. It was just like her to be stubborn about something and get herself Obliviated. Now, he'd never know what really happened when Lily had managed to find Snivellus and the reason why his wife's voice had been transformed into (admittedly soothing) wind-chimes.

Now, he couldn't use his influence on Snivellus either. The pull of the Life Debt was neutralised, so he could no longer sense where the git was anymore.

Fuck, did that mean his father was right?

Snivellus had saved his life? His family's lives?

Impossible!

His father was delusional.

The Life Debt might be gone, but Snivellus would never save him unless the git wanted something—

No way.

No how.

Baaadum. Badum. Badummp. Mmp. Ump.

What the hell was that?!

James cautiously opened the door to the dorm's hallway only to see a swoosh of black move by followed by goblins carrying a number of odd, even eerie-looking lanterns set on long metal poles—

Down to the dragon-guarded levels.

Others were looking out their doors too, curious as to why the goblins were bringing people down the dorm-levels— a place usually reserved for curse-breaker flats, hired non-goblin help, and— people like him: indentured servants.

The only exit out was guarded by— ironically— an enormous Cerberus, a dragon, and a goblin-door— the kind that guarded the greatest vaults on the very lowest levels. Only being of full goblin blood could get you through alive and unscathed, and it was guarded by a constant flow of harpy tears. No spells could withstand it.

He knew because he'd tested it to try and neutralise his collar only to get a draconic muzzle-to-face introduction to Brutus, Hilda, Snarl, and Foamy. Worse, he realised that the goblin silver of his collar contained the core of the real collar that restricted his magic, so that entire adventure had almost ended his life and all for nothing.

It was clear that the only reason there were no Aurors in Gringotts was because of their varied, inventive, and invariably fatal failsafes.

"I'm sure you'll find your improved vault measures are well-suited to your specifications, Apprentice Snape," the head goblin of the group said. "Your master left us very specific instructions to ensure the standard DoM enchantments were set alongside our own."

"Thank you, Gnarlgnash," Snivellus' distinctive voice immediately made James' hackles stand up and bristle.

"During the daylight hours, we would take you out the main way," the goblin explained, "but our dragons are trained to attack any and all comers that dare approach that direction once the main doors are sealed shut at night until the morning gongs ring. The back ways are the only safe access points— well, as safe as one can be when entering any area containing dragons."

James peered into the darkened corridor, his eyes having trouble adjusting between the bright lanterns and the surrounding stygian darkness.

"Potter, Carfus," one of the goblins snapped, having seen them, somehow, even in the gloom. "Bring the carts down to the vaults with us."

"Yes, Master Harshfang," James could hear Carfus saying automatically.

The Sycophant.

James curled his lip in derision.

"Potter!" the other goblin beside Harshfang snapped.

Gritting his teeth, James went for one of the side carts and began to pull it along behind them.

Snape didn't give him so much as a cursory glance.

How dare he hold himself above anyone else, the greasy, insufferable git!

Thump. Badump. Dadumpdumpshhhhhh.

Something slid along the floor, but he could see nothing.

There were so many things he wanted to say, but the goblins tolerated insubordination with something almost medieval in the way of correction. His comfortable but spartan bed would be removed. His food rations would be changed to hardtack and gruel (if he was lucky), and he would be planted somewhere in the middle of the working area with a literal ball and chain so others could see his shame.

No, he couldn't afford to say what he so desperately wanted to.

If he managed to keep his trap shut, he would have three warm, filling meals a day, a comfortable bed to sleep in, access to healers, and— most importantly, perhaps—monthly visiting rights.

The cart squeaked noisily as he pushed it behind.

Two carts? James thought. What would that lousy git possibly need to move out in two carts?

The trip down to the lower levels required the use of the secondary rails and a lift that creaked and sounded like it was a break and crash down before actually getting anywhere. Even knowing it had not and having used it many times, it was still unnerving.

The secondary way in was antiquated, and James believed it was on purpose. It wasn't made for the public, and the number of people who were allowed to access the bank after hours through the back ways was numbered on one hand.

Snivellus, though?

Sqqqkkkk!

Thump.

The elder goblin was flat on his back on the lift. A scorpion-like tail materialised in the gloom before the rest of a strange mismatch of creatures showed up afterwards.

Skiiirrr!

The beast cuddled the elder goblin, snuggling up to his ridiculously thick mane.

Since when did goblins have manes? He never saw such things until recently, James thought.

The lift came to a stop, and Snape relieved the goblin of his creature attacker and gave the goblin a hand up. Even more surprisingly, the goblin took it, accepting a human's assistance being something almost unheard of at Gringotts.

They rolled the carts and attached them to the railcar, all piling in, yet again. The strange beast stood up on the seat in front, paws on the rail, mouth open, and tongue lolling out the side of its mouth as the wind flapped the loose skin of her cheeks.

By the time they went through one of the Thief's Folly waterfalls, the rail came to a stop at what would be the lowest levels where two of the bank's most infamously vicious dragons, Lilith and Ichabod, guarded the vaults within.

At least, that is what should have greeted them.

Shiiiirrr!

The furry little beast springed up off the rail cart and bounded right up to the dragons, rubbing up against their feet and muzzles. The vicious dragons rumbled and pawed at the interloper and caught it between their talons only to have her ooze out like a liquid and dart up their forelegs and back.

The dragons moved aside, as clearly as if bidden to by a command and far faster than when driven by the rattles.

With a vague sense of déjà vu, James realised he knew the beast. It was the same one that had caused the downfall of his life.

He snapped his head over to look at Snape, and saw the dragon snout framed in a lion's mane— still damp with Thief's Folly and harpy tears.

Snivellus' head turned to regard him, but he was utterly silent, even serene. Those familiar, black eyes had become fathomless and unreadable, no longer a window to his well-deserved pain.

And he deserved pain— not being able to wear that look of cool detachment currently plastered on his face—

The vault was a good few minutes long trek away, and the goblins used their lanterns to light the braziers as they went deeper within. They passed the ancient vaults of many a wealthy pureblood family— the Blacks, the Lestranges, the Rosiers. Ancient vaults for equally ancient families.

"How is your newest goblet, Elder Harshfang?" Severus' voice broke the silence. "On the mend, I hope?"

"Thankfully, Apprentice Snape, your potion has done wonders," the elder goblin said with a grimace of teeth— a sign of respect James could not help but notice. "We hear about chicken pox for the Muggle humans, dragon pox for the magicals, but goblins have always had to be wary of cockatrice pox. Your vaccines and potions have made our goblets both resistant to the disease and quick to recover. We certainly cannot complain."

"I am most gratified to hear it, Elder Harshfang." Snivellus' voice was smooth, like velvet, lacking the tremble of rage it had once always had. "I will be sure to share the good news with my master."

The little beast landed on the vault door with a chirp, wings flapping. Paws went into special grooves in the door, and it lit up with runes. Two goblins inserted keys on opposite sides of the door as Snape traced an intricate pattern on the door's surface— a pattern so dizzying that James felt it slipping away as he watched.

Then, as if that wasn't enough, Snape placed his hand—PAW?!—in the middle of a circle of runes and it lit up the rest of the door.

The door rumbled and grated, rolling to the side. The little beast bounded in, making happy noises and sending golden coins flying in all directions as it ploughed through.

"Okay, I think that pile over there will be fine for the other vault. I already signed the parchments for the interest program through the goblin network. It should be enough to last a sane person through the entirety of their school career, provided it is not immediately needed for some urgent purpose."

Snivellus was planning for a kid?

Impossible, James thought.

"I will leave the formalities of moving it to you, as the vault has already been set in an more accessible area?"

The goblins nodded. "Indeed. Potter, Carfus, start loading the carts for the upper vaults."

Carfus started to work immediately, purposely keeping his head down and trying not to look to hard as to what was in the vault. James couldn't help but look around to see countless books, papers, and coffers.

A huge goblin silver statue of a chimaera in Grecian style stood in the middle of the vault, surrounded in copious piles of coins and priceless gems.

How the hell did Snivellus get so much money? The boy who couldn't even get a single set of robes that fit him properly?

The little beast came tromping back with a gem clutched between its jaws.

"Ahh, what do you have there?" the elder goblin said.

"A vault destroyer!" the other goblin gasped.

"If I may, Apprentice Snape?"

The dark clad wizard nodded in assent.

Harshfang plucked the gem between his fingers and pulled out a small crystal jar with some sort of opalescent fluid in it. He plopped it in and closed the lid.

The gem fizzled inside, bubbles forming—

SPLOOSH!

The "gem" turned into a crystalline beast that was all teeth and mouth as it tried to get out of the jar.

"Looks like someone tried to tamper with your vault," Harshfang said with a disdainful sniff. "Vault destroyers look just like typical gems or coins, settle in with your treasure, and then eat it. We normally catch such things before they get in our vaults, which makes me want to check to make sure there are not more in here. Perhaps there were eggs mixed in with some payments. If that is the case— someone out there likely has a serious infestation, and is probably not very happy."

Snape's eyebrows furrowed, but he said nothing. He nodded to the goblins, baring his teeth in respectful thanks.

Harshfang clapped sharply, and the goblins adjusted the lanterns and pressed them into the stone using their own earth magic. The lanterns turned a bright, blinding, neon green. There was the sound of cracking, like the bursting of a great many shells, tiny screeches, and then a series of organic-sounding pops.

"Roisinn," Severus said quietly. "Stir them up, please."

The beast bounced, bounded, pounced, and then dove headlong into the treasure, stirring up piles of galleons and gems. Shiny things flew about in all directions, but every so often the beast would come bounding back and dutifully place a particular gem or coin into Harshfang's clawed hands.

Gnarlgnash placed each one in a treatment jar, and his younger assistant then placed that in front of one of the special lights. The beast within instantly went still and shattered into shimmering dust at the bottom of the jar.

"I do apologise, Apprentice Snape," Harshfang said. "It is not common for anything like this to sneak past our initial inspection process."

"I take it the eggs are more insidious in nature?" Snape asked, frowning slightly.

Gnarlgnash nodded. "Eggs look more like pebbles, and easily pass as common debris on carts. They can be transferred from one vault to another if the carts are not fully cleaned. I can offer no excuses for our lapse—"

Snape lifted one hand. "I do not blame you. If anything I have learned most recently is that natural adaptations and evolutions can be powerful things to counter, and anything that has specialised in eating treasure must have had a long history of trial and error."

"They are adapted to areas, fortunately," Harshfang said. "The Egyptian ones tend to stick out here in Britain. The Norse, Mesoamerican, Australian, and others all have different looks about them. They are all weak against the lights, thankfully, which makes me think that the breach happened when someone made a private deposit and the carts were not properly cleaned and checked."

The elder goblin scowled, which somehow made him look more stern.

Skkirp?

Harshfang picked up the cubling and cuddled her. "Not your fault, My Lady."

The beast rumbled happily, puffing a cloud of purple into the goblin's face as she rubbed against him.

As the cloud dissipated, Harshfang had an even thicker mane, and Roisinn celebrated by burrowing her stinger into it playfully.

"I will check to see who was on duty the day they moved your vault from above to the lower levels, Apprentice Snape," the elder goblin said. "We will, of course, reimburse you for anything that disappeared due to being eaten from the official record."

Snape tilted his head. "Of course. Thank you."

"Carfus," Gnarlgnash said. "Take that cart up to Vault 778. Potter, take your cart up to Vault 687. You are not to leave until one of the other goblins lets you in and allows you to leave."

"That's my family's vault," James said as Carfus wheeled his cart out.

"Yes, and?" Gnarlgnash replied, scowling. "Who do you think is paying for your creature comforts and healthcare while you here? It is not coming from your and your wife's vault, I can promise you that."

Harshfang grimaced. "Amongst the goblins, it is family or the master's responsibility to fund room and board in the dormitories. Under the Wizengamot provisions, all you were allowed was what you would have had in Azkaban: a floor roll and a blanket and daily gruel. It was by Apprentice Snape's hand that you were allowed the standard bed and regular meals as the other residents that you would not stick out as an outsider and thus be singled out. Your father agreed to allow Apprentice Snape's payments to come from his vault every year to satisfy the familial clause."

"You?" James spat at Snape. "Why would you help me?"

Snape's face was strangely stoic. "Perhaps, Mr Potter, I would rather your wife have a healthy pregnancy without the added stress of being denied the opportunity to visit you or having her face the fact that you would be sleeping on the cold stone floor and have but a single pair of striped clothes to your name. Perhaps, the thought of having you singled out and murdered here or anywhere else is distasteful, even to one such as me, whom I am sure you are convinced would think otherwise. Perhaps, I did it to prevent you from being conveniently erased to allow someone we both know to get away with certain other things he would prefer not to become public knowledge. Or, perhaps, it was simply the right thing to do to ensure you do the best work you can so you will manage to be there for your child in some capacity before he graduates Hogwarts. Maybe I know well what it's like to have a father who was never there for me."

"Take your pick," Snape said coolly. "I'm sure you'll make up your own mind, regardless."

James' lip trembled as his fist clenched. It's because of you that I'm in this place, you arrogant son of a bitch.

CHOMP!

"Yeow!" James cried, jumping up and down as he tried to rub his foot.

The insufferable beast had mauled his foot, right through his boot. He glared at it, and saw something in its cognac eyes. Shifting power and intelligence. For a moment, it was no beast he was staring down but something else.

He thought he was imagining it, but the more he looked, he thought he saw a change from innocence to intelligence, and it was more than some feral cunning. There was fury and reasoning mixed together in a dark, focused glare. James felt a shiver go down his spine as the realisation there was much more to the little beast than he had previously thought.

Yoink!

Snape's hand came down and picked the little beast up, and the moment was broken. The beast went limp in his hand and wriggled up against his chin and chest with happy purrs and chirr-squeaks.

The elder goblins gave James a silent glower, and James hastily took the cart and moved back out of the vault.

The goblins bared their teeth and sighed. "You are not obligated to support him," Harshfang said. "We can put him on the standard plan from your Ministry."

Severus shook his head. "I would rather him at least be able to rest comfortably so there is no excuse for unfortunate accidents caused by excessive fatigue. He's no good to his wife and future child as a dead man."

"Why do you care what happens to him after all he has done to you?" Gnarlgnash asked., visibly perplexed.

"The Potter child is an innocent," Snape answered quietly, stroking Roisinn on the head between her ears. "I know what it is like to be— unable to connect with one's own parents. If I can prevent that— give the child a fighting chance at a normal relationship with its parents, then it is well worth the effort."

"Your concern for family is like that of a goblin's," Harshfang said, baring his teeth with respect. "You care for the future of the young, regardless of the parent."

Severus tilted his head. "My father was a bastard, though even now I wonder if he was that through and through or it was because he felt he was betrayed by his wife and his son for being magical— something he could never be. For the longest time I blamed him for every pain I experienced growing up but now I have come to realise that we were all in some pain. Doesn't make it right to abuse a child, but if I can prevent it happening with Potter's child, then perhaps something good can come of what happened to me."

Roisinn chirred, her tail wrapping around Snape's neck so she could dangle like a baby spider monkey.

"Thank you for keeping a watch over our vault," Severus said after a deep sigh. "We truly appreciate the hard work you have done to transition us from the old vaults to the newer one."

Roisinn chirp-squawked in agreement.

The goblins nodded. "It was an honour in the trust you give us to settle your matters, Apprentice Snape."

Severus quirked his lips. "It would be unwise to dismiss centuries of money magic within the Goblin Nation." He bared his teeth in respect.

The goblins laughed. "Very wise, for a human," they chuckled.

"Though, thankfully a bit less human than most," Harshfang said with a wink.

Snape laughed and nodded.

A cubling head was peering over the counter to stare intently as he sliced a series of wild mushrooms. Her nose quivered with curiosity, and her tail bounced back and forth like it was mounted on a spring.

Snape put two mushrooms in front of her. "One of these is poisonous."

Both looked perfectly identical if but for one having just a slight greenish tint.

Roisinn carefully snuffled each specimen, and then bopped the green-white mushroom with her paw, sending it careening into the fireplace.

"Good thing you were correct, little demoness," he muttered, slicing the rest of the mushrooms. "These special mushrooms are very expensive potion ingredients."

Roisinn chirred, sniffing at him, tilting her head up cutely as if to say "Like I ever would" or "Psh."

Snape soothed her ears affectionately. "Never be too cocky, love," he said softly. "We can all make mistakes."

Roisinn wagged her tail and seemed to smile up at him.

Whether she believed him or not was pretty hard to tell, but she did seem to be listening. She then snuffled her way through the pile of wild mushrooms and sorted them out by size and toxicity, leaving the deathcaps in a neat, distinctly ostracised pile all by themselves.

"Show off," Snape muttered with no little amusement, as he completed the final stir of his potion.

He scratched under her chin, earning himself a few tender licks and a playful mock-mauling.

Snape gathered the deathcaps into a small box, sealed it up with twine and green wax, and then swiftly addressed it to the DoM's poisonous flora identification class.

The moment his quill left the parchment label, the parcel and Roisinn disappeared with a FOOP!

Snape stared at the empty void where his familiar and the parcel used to be.

Roisinn's parents weren't showing signs of alarm. Gruffydd's tail was flicking from the center tree, and Zoë was sprawled lazily around the room with her body matching all the bookshelves and chairs with unnerving accuracy.

POOF!

Roisinn was back with a picnic hamper full of warm ginger biscuits clasped in her jaws. A small parchment note dangled from the edge of the lid.

Severus plucked it up and opened it.

Severus,

Thank you for the deathcaps. They will be perfect for our class. My wife insists you enjoy these as our thanks. We won't tell if you don't share.

Master Mayfree

(his seal, the Aconite flower)

Severus patted Roisinn and took a ginger biscuit out of the hamper and passed it to her. Her bright orange tongue wrapped around it and she promptly made it disappear. She chirped happily and wriggled, bouncing around the counter until she "fell off" and then continued her frantic zoom around the chambers like her tail was on fire.

She ran half way up the wall, vaulted off, bounded across the floor, climbed up her yawning father's tail, swung off, and then ploughed beneath her mum's warm wings, disappearing under her natural camouflage.

Zoë's quizzical, whirling orange eyes seemed to float in mid-air before they disappeared under their concealing lids.

Severus chuckled, realising he was utterly content with his lot and glad of it. It was odd having such casual pleasures as a commonplace thing, and even more strange to feel so… satisfied.

Stranger still, his income was impressive and steady, his patent work, contracts, and side potions were already quite lucrative. His wide array of investments through Gringotts were already producing substantial dividends too. He had more than enough funds to ensure that Roisinn and her parents were very well-provided for— and then there were the super-helpful spiders who were always eager to add to their comfort and convenience in any way they possibly could.

If anyone had told him this would be what his future held, he would have surely laughed in their faces.

Along with gaining a few rather obvious mutations—

There was a time when having anything else that singled him out would have sent him into convulsions of horror, but he was starting to realise that it was truly a gift having been adopted by a chimaera cubling. If it hadn't been for her, so many other things could have gone pear-shaped.

Mew!

Mew, mew!

A Kneazle mum was perched on his window with her litter of baby moggies. A tortoiseshell, a brown and grey tabby, one pure white, and a bright orange and white kitten tumbled over her as she systematically punted them off the sill only for them to climb their way back up again.

Tired of their constant badgering, the Kneazle simply walked through the pane of his window and lay on the other side, making herself right at home on top of his bookcase as her kittens were forced to make do without the open milk bar.

Cheeky creatures.

Dangerous place for any unknown creature to wander into, Severus wondered if the Kneazle mum had a death wish or if it was just common feline arrogance to think they could get away with anything and everything.

Roisinn seemed perfectly fine about sharing her lodgings with random beasts and animals; it was the human element that had to be looked, sniffed, poked, and chewed on to make sure they were eminently trustworthy.

Thinking on that, maybe it was common feline arrogance because they could get away with everything. Somewhere in there, Roisinn was part giant disease-breathing feline and manticore, and she got away with the most of all with her wily guile and outrageous charm.

She was also growing— like a weed. When it was convenient for her, that is.

Hell, he didn't know how fast chimaera cublings grew. Wild leopards matured at two to three years. Snow leopards took around four. Nundus— magic always seemed to make things a bit more complicated.

Fey dragons, depending on the size, could take a year or more just for the smaller ones—

This was why he never really got into Care of Magical Creatures. There were too many "well, unless" situations involved compared to potions. He had no desire to be the next Kettleburn, who kept losing random limbs, or Hagrid, who obviously didn't know the difference between his own arse and a hole in the ground when it came to dangerous creatures and how not to piss them right off.

Foop!

It was raining cublings as Roisinn fell into his arms from above him with the distinctive pop of Apparition.

She snuggled into his mane and purred, smug and successful.

Snape frowned at her. "What have you been learning, young lady?"

PurrrRRRrrRRrrrr!

He did have to admit that she was probably the most well-educated cubling on the planet with her forever dipping her stinger into Auror and Unspeakable business. If anyone could just pick up Apparition, it was probably her.

And Homomagi studies…

And potions…

Aw, bloody hell, there was no stopping her, and he knew it. Amelia knew it. Alastor knew it. The Goblin Nation knew it—

But did she know it?

Roisinn showed no sign of paying any attention to his mental musings, clearly preferring a good snuggle against his maned neck. He sighed and decided it was probably best not to read too much into his lovable little freak of nature… after all, he was one too.

For better or for worse— for richer or poorer, right?

Wait… wasn't that something else?

Snape slowly rubbed at the bridge of his nose. Same thing, really. Marriage. Familiar bond. Bond of chimaeric mutantism.

But when he looked into her lovely cognac eyes, he couldn't help but feel profoundly grateful for the gift he had been given.

"Sev."

"Russ"

"Sever."

"Russ."

"Severus."

Roisinn looked at him, clearly pleased with herself before disappearing in the cloak of her natural camouflage.

Severus' eyes widened.

What the hell had just happened?!

"All the food is gone."

"What?"

"Every last morsel."

"Even the puzzles on the ceiling?"

"Even those."

Amelia sat back in her chair, rocking to and fro, deep in thought. "I see."

The young wizard who was resetting the puzzles and adjusting them, and unbeknownst to him, a certain blur of excitable cubling was moving along behind him, opening the latches, nicking the fruit, meat and fish jerky, candy, biscuits, and other tasty "baits" out of each setup.

When he finally finished, he sat down, wiping the sheen of sweat off his brow.

Roisinn was already sat on top of Amelia's stomach, licking her chops.

Amelia laughed and laughed and laughed as Roisinn purred heartily in clear satisfaction.

"Are you convinced yet?" Master Morgan asked, idly itching his ear with his wing thumb.

Amelia sighed. "You mean does the trail of neatly alphabetized books, perfectly brewed potions, logic puzzles relieved of their food, and postal mail delivered with flawless accuracy prove anything?"

Manfred snorted. "She delivered a postal owl along with its letter. That really doesn't count."

"I think that counts for extra points, Manfred," Amelia said, grinning.

Morgan grunted. "I'll give her points for cheek."

Roisinn promptly pounced Manfred and curled up on his chest, clinging to him like a gecko.

"Sev. Ver. Us. Sev. Ver. Us. Sev. Ver. Us!" Roisinn chirred.

Morgan dropped the mug of tea he was nursing as Amelia's shaking hand reached into a desk drawer for the whisky.

"More. Ghan. More. Ghan. Boss. Of. Us. Boss. Of. Us."

Severus calmly flipped the page of the journal he was reading, a small quirk of the lips the only sign of his amusement as both Master Morgan and Amelia Bones proceeded to completely lose their marbles.

Lucius idly fingered the stone he had been given by the Dark Lord after it had been given to him by one Albus Dumbledore. He had no idea what it would do. Albus had said it would help level the playing field. The Dark Lord said it would do the same thing— after a judicious bit of tampering, that is.

Now, whatever the thing was actually supposed to do, that was something no one else seemed to know. Lucius most definitely didn't know

Now, all he had to do was—

Well, he wasn't really sure how he was going to do it.

The DoM was the most well-guarded area in the entire Ministry. Meeting up with Severus now was about the same likelihood of lightning striking— well, knowingly meeting him. Unspeakables were walking about all over the place. Only damn it to Hades, they all looked alike!

He couldn't even tell by the body language because they all stood alike too. It was almost as if Severus was bloody everywhere, that same still brand of brooding, though, was unique to Severus Snape.

Lucius dug his nails into the skin of his left arm.

The curse of his father's malice to ensure the Malfoy heir was on the "right side."

Right side, his left—

Lucius curled his lip. His beloved wife was pregnant, and now they were all in danger.

A foul taint now lurked under his skin, slowly insinuating its way into his mind. He wasn't alone in his own head anymore and that secretly terrified him.

His demented sister-in-law, on the other hand, was positively ecstatic about it, rolling around on the floor in her blissful insanity.

Things were swiftly deteriorating, though.

The Dark Lord wanted him, Lucius Malfoy, to be his resident spy at Hogwarts. He wanted him to "defect" to Albus, making up a suitable story about his family, and pretending to be on his side.

It was killing him.

Could it be… guilt? Or was it something more?

Getting to Severus was going to be hard enough.

"Looking for something, Lucius?" came a familiar low rumble of a voice.

Lucius startled. Gods, had it been so long that Severus' voice had that effect on him?

It sounded like the bloody growl of a great beast. Cripes.

"Severus," Lucius said, trying to regain his composure and suave.

"There is something called the post, Lucius," Severus said, his black eyes as fathomless as ever. Gone were the minute wrinkles of distress that had peppered his every expression. Gone was the desperation Lucius had once thought would be the easy way to get Severus to agree to meet with the Dark Lord— because the Dark Lord was interested in him for his potions talent.

Still was, most likely. Any and all contacts to power interested the Dark Lord. Power. Influence. Chains of servitude.

Lucius could not fathom a world without the political dynamics of power, yet Severus had apparently freed himself from the future yoke of the Dark Lord thanks to— Potter?

Severus did not wait for him to say more, instead he simply walked toward the living quarters— the one place Lucius purposely tried to avoid because looked akin to a slum. To think of living in a place where more than one family lived in close quarters outside of a school boarding situation. The very thought made Lucius shudder with disgust.

How could Severus living in such— ugh.

The flats were all sardine-packed with similar frontages. Every building, save for the number on the brick or the decoration of their flower box, looked virtually identical.

Lucius felt his skin crawl as a young child ran by him, having not even the sense to give him the right of way. The boy giggled as he ran toward the centre park.

"Children, Lucius," Severus said, not even bothering to turn around. "They don't know ranks here, only those they know and those they don't."

Lucius, who had never been unaware of status at any point in his life, scowled. One did not just "lose" status in his world. His family was never perceived as common.

When they stopped at one door out of many, moss had grown into the numbers, making it even less discernible than the other doors. Severus pulled a key from his robes and opened the door, wiped his boots at the door, and then stepped in. Lucius followed, looking around, but the hall was small and nondescript.

Severus had his boots off at the door and walked — barefoot.

Lucius' eye twitched.

"Boots off at the door, please," Snape said smoothly. "I assure you the floors are clean enough to eat off of, and I want them to stay that way."

Lucius tried not to panic.

"There are house slippers here if you want them." Snape turned slightly. "If you want the custom touch, you can sit on this chair here and put your feet on the stand."

Lucius wasn't quite sure what Severus meant about custom touch, but as he removed his boots using his wand, he sat on the chair to the side. It was, oddly, very comfortable, not at all what he expected.

As he put his feet up, though, a clutter of drab-coloured spiders appeared and skittered over his feet, stripping him of his socks and using their legs to measure up his feet. Others took to scrubbing his feet down with soap and water, another rubbed lotion in, and the rest wove a pair of the most comfortable silk slipper-socks he'd ever known in his life right onto his feet as he waited.

"Job's done!" they announced together and poofed out of sight.

Lucius wiggled his toes, utterly flabbergasted.

He stood and walked around the door where he had seen Snape disappear, and his jaw practically hit the floor.

The middle of the room has an enormous tree spanning upward, the branches curving up across the ceiling. Natural light filtered in from "somewhere" making it look like dappled sunlight through a dense forest canopy. The light in the room was diffused but not so overly dim that he had to squint, but his eyes had problems adjusting to the light and dark combined. He knew that Severus was somewhere in the room, but his eyes refused to make him out.

Thump.

Hisss.

Something bumped into his legs and hissed at him, and he wasn't sure if it was the serpent, dragon, or feline kind.

"Roisinn," Severus said, his voice only slightly louder. "He is our guest."

Hissss.

Someone did not seem to agree.

Feeling awkward to say the least, Lucius offered a slight bow. "If it pleases you, my lady, may I sit?"

The distinctly unfriendly hiss turned into a grumbling rumble and seemed to fade off as Lucius cautiously sat down, praying to Merlin he wasn't going to inadvertently sit on a viper.

"Your lady of the house?" Lucius asked carefully.

"One of two," Severus said. "Tea?"

"Please."

Severus tinkered in the kitchen area, a surprisingly beautiful natural wood and glass cabinet set with a Connemara green marble countertop. The tea kettle was deep emerald green with— was that spiders on it?

Snape poured the tea in front of him after placing the loaded tea tray on the coffee table. He dropped in two sugar cubes and a dollop of milk, stirring before handing it to him along with a plate of freshly spider-baked biscuits.

"You cook?" Lucius asked, quirking a brow.

"Don't be ridiculous, of course, I cook," Severus said. "However, these biscuits were baked by Roisinn's eight-legged, hyper, super-helpful culinary arachnids, not to be confused with the sewing and weaving kind that assisted you at the door."

"What?" Lucius boggled, his hand freezing at his mouth.

"Roisinn recruits arachnids that do her every whim."

"Severus, make sense please," Lucius demanded. "I don't see anyone here with you, and you make it sound like you live with a family."

"Well, I do, technically."

Lucius gave him a look, automatically eating the biscuit and realising that it, in fact, tasted absolutely delicious.

"Why are you here, Lucius?" Severus asked, cutting away the chaff with his usual bluntness.

"I have a problem."

Severus' eyebrow arched. "Do tell, but kindly do me the favour of dropping whatever it is you're carrying from wherever it is you got it into that pail by the settee, please."

Lucius startled, unnerved with having Snape's razor awareness turned on him.

A plate with crab cakes was floating in front of him. He could have sworn, just for a second, that he saw eyes staring into him as it happened.

"I'm losing my mind, Severus," Lucius said, dropping the stone into the bucket of— was that goo?

The stone's magic exploded out into the goo, but the goo absorbed it, turning into a solid block.

Lucius' eyes widened. "That was most impressive."

"The Misuse of Magical Artefacts Division wants the formula, but my boss refuses to allow it outside the DoM until they agree on a suitable fee for its use. The ingredients are quite expensive, and some of them hard to come by as well."

"Yet—" Lucius trailed, "you have a bucket here in your flat."

"I brew it," Severus said, chuckling. "Of course I have some here."

Lucius frowned at the pail. "I was supposed to give it to you."

"And so you did."

"I have no idea what it was supposed to do."

"We'll know soon enough," Severus said.

"What?"

"Whenever the pail is used, a charm sends a record of whatever it neutralised to the Dangerous Magical Artefact records office in the DoM."

"You trust them?"

"They have every reason to do their jobs and do them well," Snape responded.

Lucius fidgeted, knowing that there was at least one agent of the Dark Lord in the DoM. It was how the Dark Lord knew that he had to get his claws into Snape, even now. Because of—

"If you are thinking Rookwood, Lucius," Severus said, sipping his tea. "He won't be bothering anyone for a long time, if ever again."

Lucius startled. He knew? How?

"Rookwood is now a rather spooky-looking tree in the atrium," Snape said. "I believe you passed him on the way in."

"He— what?" Lucius managed to get out.

"Augustus met with a rather woody demise— though I suppose he is still living, technically," Snape said, utterly calm. "He makes a better tree than a human being, as many would agree."

Lucius stared at the neutralising bucket. "He's gone?"

"Well, not gone but not exactly singing the praises of animal abuse or people for that matter," Severus said, his eyes flicking to the bows of the trees.

"A tree?"

"A rather sad excuse for a tree, but still, a tree."

"How?"

Severus set out a bowl and spooned some clotted cream into it.

Within seconds, a bright orange tongue was eagerly flicking over it. Two glowing cognac eyes followed after, then a mane, a stinger-tipped tail—

"What—" Lucius mumbled.

Those eyes held him in a battle of wills, but he found himself unable to hold the gaze. He turned his gaze away.

Chrrrk!

The cubling had clotted cream all over her snout, and she rubbed it up against Snape's chin.

"Oof, yes, thank you very much," Snape said, pushing her off.

Chirrrup!

She stood on his knees and placed her paws on his chest, giving him a whuff of bright orange breath that smelled distinctly of apricots.

Snape flopped her on her back and rubbed her stomach, and her legs pumped and kicked in ticklish delight.

"What— is that?"

"She, Lucius," Severus corrected. "She is a chimaera. Not the Greek kind, mind you, but a mixture of beasts created by one Rubeus Hagrid."

"Hagrid," Lucius growled in a low hiss. "He was breeding things together for precisely what reason now?"

Roisinn hissed, her tail lashing back and forth angrily at the mere mention of Hagrid's name.

"To protect Dumbledore's chosen few, what else?"

Lucius scowled. "He created a chimaera to protect Potter and his merry band of heathens?"

"Didn't quite work out to his desires," Severus said. "She escaped, claimed me, Moody, and Madam Bones, most of the Gringotts elder goblins, the Aurory—"

"Claimed?"

"It's a lot like being owned by a cat— only far more proactive on her part," Snape said. "Those she judges worthy become her protectors— but it is a bit shady as to the particulars of who is protecting who on any given day. Rookwood attempted to pin me against a tree and warn me to be ready to choose the "right" side. That was when Roisinn used Rookwood as a human scratching post and her parents each took their pound of flesh from his arse, and I might have breathed into his face in anger."

"Breathing is hardly the same as taking chunks of flesh out of someone's arse, Severus."

"It's much worse when it involves emotion," Snape said meaningfully.

Lucius' blond brows creased together in confusion. "Explain, please."

"I don't think you'll take it well."

"Severus… "

"No, Lucius. I am, in fact, being quite truthful," Severus replied seriously. "I don't think you'd take the truth terribly well."

Lucius frowned. "I can take the truth, man, just tell me!"

"Rookwood was stopped by a highly evolved sense of Nundu breath that responds to the intense emotional charge picked up around it."

"You have a Nundu?"

"No. Well… not exactly."

Lucius gave Severus the silent, judging eyebrow with an accompanying unblinking stare.

Severus sighed and tugged at his collar, pulling out a stone "donut" with runes carved into it. As his hand touched it, swallowing it, there was a rush of warmth and Severus fell onto all fours as a great, pitch-black chimaeric beast.

Ssssssssttttthh… thud.

Lucius was sprawled on the floor, passed out completely.

Spiders caught the teacup and placed it on the table.

The huge black chimaera seemed to frown deeply as Roisinn promptly scrambled up on top of Lucius' head and did a happy dance.

Severus rubbed his chin with his forepaws and sighed. "Well, that went slightly better than expected."

Chirup? Roisinn rolled over on her back and pawed at him, still balancing on Lucius' unconscious head.

"Bathtime, miscreant," Snape said, grabbing ahold of the cubling between his jaws and placing her between his paws. Then he groomed her over from head to tail until she was squeaky clean and floofy.

Roisinn purred happily.

"That's exactly what you wanted, wasn't it?"

She purred even louder.

Snape sighed. "You have me wrapped around your little stinger, don't you?"

Roisinn head-bumped into his chin and drove her stinger into his thick mane.

Snape clucked at his cubling and lay his head down on top of her. "Be still. We need a nap."

Surprisingly, she settled almost immediately.

Snape's eyes closed even as a clutter of spiders drew a silken afghan over them and Lucius.

Lucius had downed about four cups of extra-strong Scottish tea before he was able to stay conscious enough for conversation, and that was only after Severus put his glamour back on.

Severus realised that his "true form" had some sort of strange obfuscating aura about it that prevented Lucius from being able to focus on it without either passing out or completely forgetting what he saw. It made him wonder if the four-legged chimaera had a different sort of protective aura over the bipedal form he had worn for some time. Maybe, he thought, he was just growing into his newfound abilities. It was hard to tell precisely what Hagrid's foolhardy tinkering had ultimately done to Roisinn and her parents as well as himself, Alastor, Amelia and everyone else in their ever-expanding circle of, well… weird.

Lucius had finally managed to coax some attention of the non suspicious variety out of Roisinn using his seemingly preternatural charm. Severus suspected it was because Lucius had a poor opinion of Lily as well as Hagrid, and that was something Lucius and the cubling could both fervently agree on.

Severus was still somewhat torn on the subject of Lily. She was his only childhood friend before Hogwarts and one of the few he had before their final falling out. Sure she tried to make up to him so he would drop the charges against her husband, but there was that part of him that said she was looking out for her future child in a world that frowned on single mothers and convicted criminal parents in equal measure. That didn't even include Lily's public shunning as Dragon Pox Lily where witches pulled their children away from her in social settings lest she unknowingly infect them with some other dread disease.

Somehow, his Hogwarts shaming didn't seem quite so bad by comparison.

Now that was a revelation.

"So you're saying…" Lucius said slowly as if carefully navigating a conversational minefield, "is that Hagrid made a her parents out of gods know how many illegal breedings to have her, which he needed an even more controversial magic bonding potion to accomplish— and he created a chimaera the likes of which the gods are probably taking notes."

"That is the long and short of it, yes."

Lucius drank more tea, practically guzzling it down. Unconsciously, he was petting Roisinn behind the ears and under the chin, and she was soaking it in with approval.

The lure of the fuzzy yet strangely armoured cubling belly was too powerful to resist.

Roisinn was gnawing on Lucius' arm, her drool and baby teeth scratching into his skin along with her claws. She wasn't doing it hard enough to really hurt him, but she was getting excited at having a new chew toy to play with.

Lucius was gazing on her with a glazed, relaxed expression. The little creases that plagued his pseudo-permanent scowl disappeared.

Severus frowned as he noticed Lucius was bleeding, and he tried to reach for Roisinn to get her to desist her maulings, but Roisinn only clung tighter, her stinger threatening to peg his hand or arm.

Blood as dark as ink trickled down Lucius' arm.

Wait.

Snape quickly summoned a mage-light with a gesture drawn with his fingers and a snap of his thumb and index finger.

Brilliant natural light focused on Lucius' arm, wrapped in a cubling embrace with her teeth grazing his skin. Roisinn glared at him, squinting at the light, but the blood—

It wasn't blood at all.

It was an oily black sludge as dark as ink but as thick as gravy. Where it dripped down onto the floor rug, the rug melted away as if touched by acid.

Lucius had the most blissful expression on his face…

Snape watched as the strange, writhing tattoo on his arm seemed to drain out like someone had drilled a hole in a glass to let the wine out. The sludge seemed to writhe outward in an escape with no plan but to leave and fast.

Roisinn dropped to the ground and drove her stinger into the muck.

Stab.

STAB.

STABBBBB!

The muck fizzled and bubbled, a strange screaming noise coming from the puddle. Undeterred, Roisinn breathed on it, forming a dark purple cloud of emotionally-charged kharma disease over it. The puddle seemed to vibrate violently before it vanished, leaving only a burnt crater in the carpet where it had puddled.

"Gods, Severus, whatever did you put in this tea," Lucius said dreamily.

Severus pulled out his wand and sent a Patronus to his master and the Head Boss of You even as he pulled a strand of his own memories out into a vial. "No one was going to believe the story without it.

Roisinn sat on her hind legs and began to groom herself assiduously, licking her paw and drawing it over herself. It was as if she had no care in the world.

Severus had a sneaky suspicion that there was nothing remotely without purpose in the chimaera cubling, and he said a silent prayer to the gods for not binding her to the likes of Potter and Black or even Rubeus Hagrid.

He had no doubt at all he'd have been dead if that were the case— and they wouldn't have needed a reason. She would have picked up on their petty, personal hatreds and killed whatever they wanted.

Innocently, too.

Or maybe not.

He picked her up and cuddled her, and she instantly went limp in his arms, purring madly.

Maybe she wouldn't have bonded to them at all—

She seemed utterly too intelligent to be so easily imprinted on blind prejudice or she would have bonded to Hagrid right from the start.

Instead, she had escaped him and run—

Straight to him, the infamous Snivellus "Greasy Git" Snape—

Did that mean she could see something in him that even he couldn't at the time? Was it simply pure dumb luck?

Roisinn looked so adorable and innocent— it hardly seemed that she could be so deliberate.

Was it even possible to be both innocent and deliberate?

Her parents were, or rather could be, murderous creatures. All signs pointed to manticore man-eating and the Nundu-part of the fey-dragon as being deadly by all accounts, not that the mother fey dragon wasn't fully equipped to defend her family.

Lucius snort-snored awake, his eyes widening as Alastor and Amelia came floating through the floo flames.

"Hullo, Mr Malfoy," Amelia said as she jutted out her chin at the Unspeakables that had materialised like ghosts. "I hope you don't mind us checking to make sure your arm and the rest of your body are suffering from no ill effects?"

Lucius blinked slowly. "What?"

"Our Roisinn seems to believe you are worthy of a second chance," Amelia said.

The Unspeakables were performing wand movements over him and his left arm, especially.

Lucius tried not to pass out in instinctive fear of their countenances. It was ingrained in every wizard and witch since childhood that the Unspeakables were worse than boogeymen.

The Unspeakables hissed to each other, their goblin-silver gauntlets extending like claws over Lucius' arm.

The cubling pounced the nearest Unspeakable and clung to their front like a gecko. She wrapped her tail around their neck and clung.

The Unspeakable pulled a raspberry jaffa cake out from their pocket, and the cubling munched on it contentedly, making happy squeaking noises.

"What is going on?" Lucius asked. "What have you done to my arm?"

He pressed his fingers into his skin, frowning. He tapped his head with one hand, the lines on his forehead creasing. "He's gone. That terrible presence. It's— gone!"

Lucius clutched his left arm, scratching at it with a deliberate motion. "I hope you're writhing in the Underworld, father," he spat.

"Old Abraxas?" Alastor asked, perplexed. "What does he have to do with your arm?"

"He ensured I would be on the "proper" side." Lucius wrinkled his nose in clear distaste. "He made it quite clear that he would arrange for my wife and future child meet a— sticky end— if I did not comply with his wishes."

Alastor smiled mirthlessly. "Pureblood patriarchs have a very long history of ruling their families through the use of manipulation and coercion. Yet, it seems as though no one thinks to break the cycle of it."

"When all of your family's history and vaults are tied to a certain reputation, breaking free of it could mean cutting your family off from the funds it relies on," Lucius said, his face grim. "No one wants their loved ones to suffer because of one's own personal choice to rebel."

Alastor's expression darkened. "So you bought into the game for money."

Lucius clenched his fists. "Yes. And to protect my Narcissa and our future child. Narcissa comes from the Black family, which is even more notorious for the promotion of pro-pureblood interests than the Malfoys ever were."

Lucius' knuckles turned white. "Neither I nor Narcissa are accustomed to a life of poverty. You have no idea how much fear that prospect strikes into anyone from the old families."

"Surely not poverty as talented wizards and witches."

Severus stood. "I think what Lucius is trying to say is that even our highest paying jobs would be but a drop in the endless bucket he is used to pulling from for small things like— very expensive wine."

There was an edge of bitterness in Snape's voice, and Roisinn flattened her ears to her head.

Roisinn looked back and forth from Snape to Malfoy, her brows creased and her tail lashing with conflict. She tugged on Snape's robes and tried to drag him close to Lucius. She then tried to pull Lucius closer to Severus, but both men were being adamantly stubborn.

She furrowed her brows as her frustration grew, her tail lashing a little more violently. Venom dripped from her stinger, and pegged Snape deep into his calf, right through his thick robes. Her teeth made a beeline for his knee.

Amelia lunged quickly, scooping up the irritated cubling in her arms and soothing her against her mane. "There now, lass. Sometimes it takes a while for people to get over themselves."

Roisinn purred against Amelia's warm mane, completely ignoring both Snape and Malfoy in favour of Madam Bones' cuddles.

Severus winced, rubbing his stabbed calf. "That bloody hurt!"

Lucius seemed torn between relief and conflict, his expression shifting from wrinkled to pinched to resigned as he rubbed his temples with his fingers.

"Severus," he said. "I never meant to hurt you with that comment. Truly. I realise that I've been raised to be accustomed to wealth and finding it terrifying that I'd have to worry about it. It may not be a logical or even rational part of me, but I truly did not mean for it to sound like those who work hard for their galleons are any less as people. It is simply very hard to come to terms with my own fear for the financial welfare of my family— which I know most people would scoff at if they realised just how much our family still had."

Severus, closed his eyes for a moment, setting his jaw stiffly. He walked out of the room. "I need some air."

Lucius winced, holding his left arm where the Dark Mark had once lain as his personal scarlet letter of shame.

"Gods, I'm an idiot," Lucius said after taking in a deep breath.

"You're both idiots," Roisinn chirped so utterly clear and in unmistakable. English that Amelia practically dropped the cubling.

Lucius sat down hard on the couch again, Alastor took a really big swig of his flask, and the Unspeakables started to frantically write in their notebooks.

At that very moment, a mother fey-dragon's bright orange tongue encircled her cubling and dragged her off into invisibility.

"What just happened?" Lucius asked in a shocked whisper.

"I think you've been served," Alastor said with a straight face.

A clutter of spiders appeared on the couch with a fresh pot of tea and biscuits.

Looks like they could really use some refreshments.

Especially him.

Yeah, blondie looks pretty knackered.

They placed the tray on the arm of the couch, pinning it in place with silk and threw themselves off the edge.

Tally ho!

Bonsai!

My life for Aiur!

The spiders disappeared in a flurry of scurrying.

Lucius poured himself a cup of tea and drank it down.

Meanwhile, a spider with a bucket crawled over to where Snape was brooding in the Atrium and dumped the entire bucket of ice-cold water on his head. The bucket, which apparently been enchanted to hold much more water than its size implied, had enough water to make its own waterfall.

Jerkface! the spider said, storming off into the undergrowth.

Severus hadn't moved an inch as the frigid water dripped down his hair, soaked his favourite robes, and pooled all over the floor.

Severus closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "Abso-fucking-lutely wonderful."

A young witch passed him by, did a perfect spit take, and then backtracked. She threw her arms around him and embraced him fiercely.

"You look like you really need a hug!" she announced.

Severus, dripping and accosted by a young witch he couldn't just yell at or throw away from him, slumped in defeat.

"Thanks," he muttered.

Later that night, Alastor lay on the couch half asleep with an energy-sucking cubling snoozing peacefully on his chest, snuggled up tightly to his mane.

Amelia sat in the next room between Lucius and Severus, mediating between them during their hot and cold conversations, something Alastor admitted he was not the best wizard to handle that job.

He tended to yell first and cuff people about the head rather than accept less-than-stellar behaviour.

Severus had, admittedly, calmed down once Lucius basically outlined everything he knew about the Dark Lord's plans— where, why, who, and hows.

There would be a great many arrests, Alastor was happy to admit, but they would also need large and well-prepared Auror squads on standby and patrolling the streets lest there be trouble. There was still the matter of whatill-effects the Dark Lord would have thanks to cubling interference with Lucius.

There was also the matter of the enchantments the office had recorded on the stone Lucius had brought with him. Whatever Dumbledore may have put on it originally, the Dark Lord had made it into a Portkey— probably meant to either separate Roisinn from Severus or subvert Severus by force without his beast-family to assist.

It would be up to the tracker-tracers to see if they could gleen any more detailed information out of the stone's enchantments, and the outlook was spotty. They might be able to trace the signature of energy to the creator, but Albus was also involved— making teleportation to a trace more than a little risky.

Oh, but how great it could be to have a hundred Aurors just show up at the Dark Lord's supper table and take out the elite core of Death Eaters and the Dark Lord—

If those same Aurors showed up in Dumbledore's office, however— Hogwarts' wards could tear them to pieces.

Well, that was why the Unspeakables got paid the big galleons— he would trust them to figure something out without getting more people killed.

Roisinn purred and rubbed up against him once more, her stinger tail slapping into his face a few times before she jumped down to the floor and padded off into the next room, radiating sleepy vibes.

It was bedtime, and her nightly rituals were practically written in stone.

Alastor chuckled.

Ah, to be owned by a chimaera cubling. Heaven help the world when she grew up.

A/N: Brainstorming with FawkseyLady over an initial idea that prisoners in Azkaban would make makeshift wands like Muggles would make shanks lead to the scene in the prison. Beware writers on caffeine and Naprosyn at 2 am.

A/N: I will be starting a new job and adjusting to a new shift, so updates are going to be pretty sparse on all fronts as my writing time will be small, and my window to speak with my betas even more evil than they are now. I'm totally excited to be starting a job in the field I have studied for, but I'm also scared to death. LOL. Thank you for all your love, support, and reviews. I may not reply to every one, but I appreciate every single review.