Chapter One- I Walk The Line
Aurora scheduled the try-outs for the next Saturday, giving herself time to think about what it was she wanted. She had made a checklist and put it on a clipboard, but it was slowly gathering items. Already, it was a half a roll of parchment long and involved numerous aspects, including sportsmanship demonstrated. Fortunately, she already had an idea of how to handle the situation. So, with an open mind and an optimistic mind set (she had offered her prayers to the Mother, of course), she approached Pansy Parkinson without a word. She laid a single hand on the vast expanse of leather beside Pansy on the couch and watched with inner satisfaction as she jumped.
"What do you want?" Pansy snapped, her hand over her heart.
"Well, with that attitude, I'll just cross you off my list of chasers," Aurora said, turning.
"Wait a minute," Pansy said, jumping up and moving in front of her. "I was just scared, that's all. How can I help?"
"I know," Aurora smiled, and she put an arm around Pansy's shoulders. "And, between you and me, you already have a spot so don't suck up."
"What do you mean; already have a spot?" Pansy asked quietly.
"I saw you in your backyard on my way home from Surrey. It was an impressive game and, personally, I really don't want to be the only girl this year."
Pansy smiled sympathetically.
"I need an assistant coach; someone I can trust to help me with the paperwork and the try-outs. You'll have to make a good show at the try-outs, of course (show the boys what real chasing looks like) but other than that you'll only have to keep an eye on the players waiting."
"Paperwork?" Pansy asked.
"Well, Dumbledore asked me to name a successor at the end of the year and I really don't want to leave them empty handed. I plan on keeping records through the year and I'm no good at organization," Aurora said, gesturing to her desk, cluttered with parchment and quills as it was.
"Obviously," Pansy said with a smile. It faded however, as she turned to the elder witch. "I thought you weren't accepting anyone with suspected Death Eater affiliations. It's well known that my parents are Death Eaters."
"Show me your arms," Aurora said softly, with all the care of a patient lover.
Pansy rolled up the sleeves of her top and held out both arms. Neither had a tattoo on them, although Aurora noticed that there were several scars, obviously self inflicted. To each her own, she said, thinking of the knitting needles hidden under her bed and the dagger in her night stand as well as the scars on her upper arms.
"I don't see a single sliver of tattoo on either arm. The brand of Voldemort cannot be glamoured; I know that damn well. I didn't say Death Eater affiliations; I said supporters of Voldemort," Aurora explained. "I'm living proof that the child does not follow the parent."
Pansy smiled softly. "What do I need to do?"
Harry looked very cross. His bed was full of people, the curtains were charmed closed, and everything was silenced, despite the lack of people in the Tower. It was Saturday, and a warm one at that; everyone was on the grounds. Still, his friends refused to believe him, all except Luna and Neville. Ron, Ginny, and Hermione all thought the other three were nuts.
"I'm telling you, right before she came into the Great Hall there was a crown of crimson Celtic knots on her forehead and then it was gone!" Harry said sharply.
"I'm not saying you didn't see it, Harry," Hermione said finally. "It's possible. I just... do you even know what that means?"
"Not the foggiest, but obviously it's important," Harry huffed.
"Damn right it's important, mate," Ron said, sitting up. "A crown of crimson Celtic knots is the mark of the Vampire Princess."
"The what?" Harry asked.
"The Vampire Princess." It was Luna, not Hermione, who answered. "Vampires have a nation all their own, although they mostly live among us. Traditionally, a vampire comes of age at seventeen. They're then placed in one of three classes. Lower, Common, and Noble classes have three categories. Lower class vampires are Killers, Scrags, or Animal vampires. Common class vampires are Farmers, Crafters, or Warriors. Noble classes are Phoenix Guards, Council-men, or Royalty. Killers can advance to Common class and Warriors can advance to Noble class. Council members come from one of three regions; three from every region. Two are from the Common class, the other is an elder member of the Phoenix Guard. They represent the will of the vampiric nation. Royalty consists of, at max, four vampires; King, Queen, Prince, and Princess. The King vampire wears a true crown made of white roses, the Queen of black. The Prince wears a venom crown, temporarily or whenever called upon, of blue Celtic knots, the Princess of red. When they come of age, their marks fully develop and they can do whatever they please. If the Princess is at Hogwarts, she's likely chosen to stay in defiance of her safety in order to prove that she is not afraid."
Harry was thunderstruck. He couldn't believe that Luna had just explained something in a way that made sense to him. Instead of remaining silent, he asked a question. "Why would coming back to Hogwarts proove she isn't afraid?"
"Voldemort has been after vampiric support since the first war. The Queen has never... bought... it... good God! What's the true last name of Queen Victoria?" Hermione said suddenly.
"Serpentus," Ron said automatically. He then sat up straighter. "Aurora?"
"Harry; was the girl wearing Slytherin robes?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah," Harry replied, confused.
"With black hair and green eyes?"
"Yeah."
"Head Girl crest pinned to her robes up by the fold?"
"I think."
"Aurora Serpentus... why didn't we see that coming?" Ron asked.
"Because she never looked the part," Neville whispered.
"What do you mean?" Harry said, turning to Neville.
"Traditionally, vampire royals are spoiled rotten. Every Queen they've had in the past was bad. Even Victoria's mother was terrible. But, she died in child-birth. Victoria went to the Prince family. She was raised by their daughter, Eileen Prince. Prince was married to a Muggle who abused both her and her own child, along with Victoria. She values life and has taught her daughter the same; thus, no one ever suspected that Aurora was Princess because Victoria took the... the name... the name of the man who abused her..."
"What was it?" Harry asked.
"Snape."
"We are not having this discussion," Aurora said, her hands plastered over her ears.
"Oh, yes we are, young lady," Severus said, peeling his daugher's hands away from her ears. "Have you slept with him?"
Aurora, eyes narrowed, crossed her arms over her chest and turned away. "I have Quidditch trials to run, Prefect schedules to make, and a successor in both to name and you want to talk about my sex life!"
"To the best of my knowledge, you're having Pansy Parkinson work up a table of trials for Chasers and Beaters. You've already got one set up for both Seeker and Keeper positions. Not only that, but you passed the baton on Prefect schedules, having made the girl's schedules yourself. As for the successor part, Dumbledore wants it by December, not the first day of classes!" Snape hissed. "Now, I want an answer, damnit."
"No! I haven't fucked him yet and I'm not planning on doing it any time soon!" she shouted finally, abandoning caution and the idea that he might slap her.
Flesh on flesh rang out in the room and Aurora felt the sting of his hand on her cheek. "I don't care how you speak around the guard, but you will not use that filthy tongue while I'm around, understand."
"Fuck you! I'll say what I want, damnit," she hissed. She braced as his hand flew back. "Slap me again. I dare you."
Newborn magic flared in the room, and Snape suddenly realized that she could kill him if she wanted to. Regardless of what he believed, he knew she was not pure by the fact that there was already a ring of roses around her right wrist. It would only grow greater with the more partners she claimed over the years. There were only three roses on it now, but Severus knew that by the end of her long, long life, she would possibly have a full arm of roses. Hell, she could probably have a whole arm by the end of the year if she wanted to, with the way she was acting.
"When?" he asked softly, having grasped the fact that the little eleven year old who had first walked into his potions classroom, with hair black as his own and eyes like her mother, was dead, just as Aurora had shouted at him the year before.
"Fourth year," Aurora said quietly.
She had never known her father to care about her, in any way, shape, or form. Severus Snape was a cold man, and he had every right to be. He'd gone from abusive home, to abusive school-mates, to abusive servitude (which, she maintained, was his own stupidity more than anything), and was now controlled by not one puppet master, but two! Severus had no time for compassion and she understood that. The fact that he felt anything at all for her meant the world to her. But, to go from her loving, understanding mother to a cold man holding on to the image of the innocent little eleven year old who had first walked into his classroom full of fifth years for OWL potions (and had beat them all) was difficult. She sometimes lost sight of which was which. Now, to see the man's concern and compassion written on his face was surprising.
"Who?" he asked, words failing him.
She looked down at the roses. What he did not know, and hopefully would never know, was that the amount of petals corresponded directly to the amount of times union occurred. Every rose started with nine petals and it increased by two from there. The size of the roses let her know which was which. The largest was the first one she traced.
"Fred Weasley," she said softly before her fingers moved to the medium sized rose. "Marcus Flint," she whispered before moving to the smallest, her newest and unrepeatable conquest coming to mind. She knew he would not be happy. "Spike."
She was wrong. Severus wasn't unhappy. He was pissed.
"SPIKE?" he snarled, grabbing the closest vial and throwing it against the wall, causing it to shatter and her to jump a foot in the air.
"Hey, it was either him or Malfoy," Aurora said defensively before she shuddered. "And it was not my idea, either."
"Whose was it, then? His?"
"Mom's."
"Your mother?"
"Well... she didn't outright say that that was what she wanted, but she did imply that she wouldn't care if it happened."
She recrossed her arms and narrowed her eyes again, challenging him to say anything.
"Why a Weasley?" Snape said, diverting his attention until he could find a way to safely bottle his rage; he would unleash it on Victoria at earliest convenience.
"Because... it was fun, he was interesting, and I was drunk. That was the week Malfoy broke my arm, so, naturally, I went out and got pissed."
"Naturally," Snape said with a cluck of the tongue; he knew that her mother could hold liquor and it seemed that Aurora had inherited the talent.
"Now, if you don't mind, I think I'll be going now," Aurora hissed, moving to stand. Snape put one hand on each arm of the chair and glared her back into it.
"We have not even gotten to the topic I want to discuss," he said with narrowed eyes.
"Which is?" she huffed. She already knew, of course, but that knowledge didn't help her in any way, shape, or form to construct a feasable answer.
"Why you have not begun the courting process with your mate when you know damned well that courting you will give him immense power; power enough, possibly, to protect him," Snape hissed.
Aurora drew a silent breath and closed her eyes. There were so many reasons to throw herself at her mate. Power, protection, the transformation he would undergo; all would aid him. But she had one last, selfish desire to indulge in before she even considered him. She wanted to come into her own first. She didn't want to deal with all the stress of being mated to him while she was trying to find herself. And Snape would not understand because his sense of duty was absolute; had been since he had foresaken his own freedom to protect his one true love, even when she chose his most hated rival over him. The young princess felt a stab of tears in her eyes at the knowledge that Snape had loved Lily... had loved her more than he cared for her mother. That was why she hadn't known him until Hogwarts. That was why her mother had hidden his identity from her for so long. The pain that she had seen whenever he looked at her was not for love lost; it was for mistakes made. A mistake. That's all you've ever been is a mistake.
"Because I'm not ready,"Aurora said, amending her answer slightly.
"Well, according to those roses on your arm you're more than ready," Snape growled.
Finally, it dawned on Aurora why he was pissed. "Just because you promised his mother that you would protect him does not mean you get to use me to do it!" she whispered. "Just because I'm the third wheel in this does not mean I have to do your bidding. I'll not keep your promises for you, damnit."
"I'm not asking you to do that," Snape said, sitting down heavily across from her. "I'd never ask that of you. And I don't want to catch that roving thought of being a mistake in your head again. You may be a mistake, but you're the best mistake we ever made."
Aurora hid her smile behind a cold, calm mask of indifference.
"I'm asking you to protect yourself. You know what happens if he dies," Snape said softly.
"Of course I know what happens if he dies," Aurora said darkly. "I get sixty days to set my affairs in order and then you and mum have to make another mistake."
"Believe me when I say once was quite enough. I'm a bit older now than I was then and I doubt I could keep up," Snape said, cracking the first smile she'd seen on him since she'd showed up at Spinner's End during the summer.
Stumbling blearily down the path, her head and arms burning, she could feel his presence go from drowsily aware to alert in moments. The pendant around her neck, given to her by her mother, alerted him to her proximity. She knew, just by the reek, that Narcissa and Bellatrix had come and gone. Her senses were heightening and it was even more maddening then the last spurt she had the year previously. The brand had formed on her left wrist and then she had spent three days in bed, covered head to toe as her temperature dropped and rose and dropped and rose. She'd awoken to find that the castle, once comfortable to her heightened body heat, was now unexpectedly too cold. She'd expected it to be quite warm for her, but it appeared that a thirty degree drop in temperature made the drafty halls seem like the tundra.
She almost doubled over in pain on the door step as she waited for Severus to send Wormtail away. In closing her eyes, she could see clearly through his eyes that the stubborn rat refused to leave until Snape told him what was going on. "I have... company of the female persuasion, Wormtail, and I'd rather not have to deal with you."
Aurora blushed a brilliant crimson, not realizing that her father knew such innuendo. So much for being a cold hearted bastard.
"I heard that," he drawled slowly, looking at her. She was shivering inside the large leather overcoat that was Spike's, and she knew instantly that it had been a bad idea to steal it from him. If the smell of sex had drifted onto it, however, Snape took no notice. "What, pray tell, has struck you so boldly that you felt the need to turn up on my doorstep when you know very well this place is not safe?"
He had moved back from the door, and the second Aurora stepped into the house, she collapsed on the ground. Snape, for the first time in his life, panicked. He slammed the door shut and crouched next to her.
"Aurora," Snape said softly. "Aurora, I can't help you if you don't tell me what's happening."
"The... the change... it's... it hurts..." she moaned, giving up on the idea of hiding her pain. For some reason, Snape found this funny.
"You know, you're stronger than most. Your mother collapsed with the first wave of it," Snape said as he lifted her bridal style. "You can stay here until the first wave is over. After that, you're to go to the Ice Palace."
"Nmmm... I... I want to stay... stay here..." she said softly. "Want to... celebrate... my birthday... with... with you."
Snape had allowed her to stay until the day after her birthday, just three short days before she was to board the Hogwarts Express for the last time. The next morning found her with a bandage across her forehead and around both wrists, cooking breakfast while Wormtail cowered in fear in a corner. Every so often, she shot him a glare. She plated everything on a tray and turned just as Snape stepped onto the first floor landing.
Nope. Go back upstairs she had told him. While still groggy, he remembered that she was the acting lady company that he had told Wormtail about the night before. Obviously, she had heard it too; Aurora had snuck into his room and grabbed one of his oversized shirts to put on, making it appear that she had spent the night there. They had had a good time until the Dark Lord summoned him. After that, the last time she had seen him smile was on her birthday, when she blew out the candles on the strawberry cake he made for her. Her wish, as yet unfullfilled, was that he would live to see her eighteenth birthday (when her hair would grow a foot and a half longer and all her skills would fully develop) as a free man. In her heart, her second part of the wish was that both her parents would be willing to celebrate it together; good friends or not, Aurora had never before been permitted to see Snape outside school after turning eleven. She had envoked her mother's wrath just by refusing to go to the Ice Palace. She'd wandered around London those last three days, talking with Spike and Angel. Aurora was certain that allowing her to sleep with Spike had been an attempt to coax her back to the Ice Palace, but she had only tried it once, just to see what it was like to fuck another vampire.
"You never did tell me what task he assigned you when you were summoned."
"He wants me to find out the identity of the Vampire Princess."
Harry could hear a loud argument coming toward him in the dungeons. He was interrogating Blaise Zabini when he heard Snape's voice roar with rage and pain. Without warning, he sprinted down the hall toward the sound and hid in an alcove off to the side.
"I'm not going to sit here and let you fail! Give him my name!" shouted a female voice.
"I'm not going to sacrifice my daughter for my own safety! I'll do no such thing!" Snape shouted in reply.
"Then I'll offer myself up on a silver platter with all the trimmings," she said, and Harry could hear the sincerity in her voice.
"No you will not!"
"Give him my name."
"No."
"That's your only alternative; you give him my name, or I give him me," she said, and they rounded the corner so that Harry could see them, although they could not yet see him.
It was Aurora. The crown of knots was gone and Harry didn't sense any glamour, meaning that they had faded just like Luna said they would. It took four days after the coming of age for them to fade, meaning that she had come of age just three days before boarding the Hogwarts Express. She'd been helping out the Order at age sixteen, not seventeen. Dumbledore and Remus had lied.
"I could always chain you in the dungeons."
"I'll melt the chain."
"I'll make them indestructable."
"And I'll reverse the spell."
"Are you always this stubborn or just when you're committing suicide?"
"Only where you're concerned."
Snape narrowed his eyes at her. So focussed was Harry on the argument that he didn't see Snape's wand until it was too late.
"Levicorpus!" he shouted. Harry felt his feet come out from under him as Snape brought him up in the air with his head pointed the wrong direction.
"Put me down!" Harry shouted. Aurora, he could see, was chuckling. Somehow, that made him relax a fraction, although he had no idea why.
"Spying on my conversations are we?" Snape said. "I think that'll be worth fifty points and a few weeks of-"
"Don't start," Aurora said crossly. "If you stopped acting like an asshole, maybe people wouldn't treat you like one."
"What did I say about that tongue of yours?" Snape sneered, but he put Harry down none-the-less. "What did you hear, Potter?"
"That Voldemort wants you to find the name of the Vampire Princess," Harry said. "Through powers of deduction, I've come to the conclusion that she," he gestured toward Aurora, "Is the Vampire Princess and she is also your daughter."
"That about sums it up," Aurora said, offering him a hand.
When their palms touched, it was like an electric current passed through the both of them. Both teens jumped back, and Snape looked very smug. Daughter glared at father (very teen-like, for a princess) and pulled Harry up despite the current. The tingling sensation, however, remained in Harry's palm.
"Do you believe me now?" Snape said darkly.
"Alright, alright, I get it. Shut up," Aurora hissed.
It was almost a parseltongue hiss, and Harry had to fight to keep from replying in kind. It was eerie.
Aurora, on the other hand, sent a mental message to her father.
Let me handle this. Please.
Alright, ladies and gents; I mean it this time. I want more than one review, although I deeply appreciate the lovely review by BlackAngel. Please? Pretty please? And I promise I won't old chapter two hostage without good reason (or Harry's wand... whichever I get first) ;)
Blessed be,
Midnight
