Disclaimer: Same as always, I only own the characters that I've lovingly created.
Rating: T
Pairings: Multiple!
I have been working hard on this chapter and story period. If you don't like slash or mpreg please hit the back button immediately! If you have an open mind to both those things, please, proceed to read. Please review and keep it friendly and or professional!
Now, go on and read this lovely chapter...
Chapter 3
"Father! I can not find my Firebolt! Have you seen it anywhere!?" Sophia called from within her tornado-ravaged looking bedroom located in the East Wing of Snape Manor. "No I have not, but perhaps if you stop being so careless and start using that lovely head of yours, I fancy you'll remember to stop leaving it in the gardens," a slightly annoyed yet highly amused voice sounded from the doorway. Sophia had nearly fallen over in relief and shock when she saw her father standing quite…well…his posture was definitely different. "Oi Dad! Don't sneak up on me like that! I could have been naked! You almost gave me a heart attack!" she pretended to be angry and offended.
Severus smirked and shook his head at his sometimes highly dramatic daughter, "But see Sophia dear, I would know if you wanted to be left by your lonesome if you were naked or in a bad mood because your door would be closed," he said as he handed over her pride and joy. "Thank you Father. I'll be ready to leave in a moment, I just have to get my shoes and books packed," Sophia said grinning as she set about to finding her favorite pair of muggle sneakers and boring black school shoes.
Severus rolled his eyes once again and watched as she rushed about, fitting her last minute things into her trunk.
"I'm ready! Lets go!" Sophia practically squealed. Severus shook his head in amusement and magically shrank her trunk then put it into his pocket, "Now, we can go. But first I have to make sure that everything will be in tip top shape while we're gone. Then we can go to the Weasleys and wait until its time to leave for the platform."
Poor Sophia's face fell but she nodded nonetheless, reminding Severus of Draco when he too had been excited for his first day of Hogwarts. Though Lucius had instilled in his son to show no kind of emotions pertaining to the ones of happiness, (or anything remotely close to it), Draco still shared his harbored angst and excitement with his beloved godfather.
Sophia dutifully followed her father to one of his studies that they would be flooing from and jumped slightly when he yelled out to one of the house elves, "Piffy!" A small pop sounded and a small elf-like creature with long floppy ears, and a long nose with a dingy pillowcase for a uniform stood and bowed.
"Make sure that while the young master and myself are away, the house stays clean, the wards are up, the gardens are taken care of, and no one gets in," the black-haired man ordered. The small house elf bowed its head, "Yes Master Snape sirs, Piffy shall inform the others, do not worry," and she disappeared with a small resounding pop.
"You may go first, and please speak clearly this time, we don't want any mishaps like the last one," he reminded his sometimes forgetful daughter. Sophia shuddered at the memory, mispronunciation of the Burrow had ended her up on a farm somewhere in a barn straight into horse manure. Why someone would have a fireplace in their barn near horse manure was beyond Sophia, but her father took no liberty in letting her forget about it. "Trust me…I fancy I wouldn't want to walk around all day smelling like horse-" "I would suggest you not use the word you were contemplating on substituting for the correct one," Severus smirked as Sophia stared confusedly at him for a moment before huffing and saying, "No fair. No using your skill of mind reading without telling me!"
Severus crossed his arms and said, "Then don't think about using words you know you shouldn't." Sophia grinned, grabbed a pinch of floo powder, stood in the fireplace and yelled, "The Burrow!"
She landed almost on her bum in the cozy kitchen of the matriarch Weasley.
"Oh Sophia Dear, so wonderful to see you again," Mrs. Molly Weasley said as she brushed the offending ashes off of the ten-year-old. "Its nice to see you again as well Grandma Weasley," she said with a bright smile.
"Oh! You look just like-" Mrs. Weasley stopped when she saw Severus step out of the fireplace, remembering who she was talking to. "Severus! How have you been? The others are in the living room dear. Why don't you go and see them?"
Sophia nodded and walked to the living room, all the while wondering why Mrs. Weasley had looked so sad when she had said that she, Sophia, looked like someone and then stopped. "Sophie, hey Squirt," she heard someone say. She looked up and smiled, "Benjy!" she flung her arms around him, "You're tall," she observed. Benjamin Weasley chuckled, his slightly deep voice sounded wonderful to her ears. "Thanks," he said.
"Oh my gosh! Sophia, I haven't seen you in ages!" a girl with extremely curly and slightly bushy Weasley Red Hair, chocolate brown eyes, and light freckles said excitedly as she hugged her best friend. "I missed you!" she squealed. "I missed you too," Sophia said back as she hugged the girl tightly, "I'm so excited about our first year at Hogwarts! Aren't you Em?" The bushy-haired Weasley nodded and said, "Mum and Dad should be here soon with the Ministry Cars and guess who they're bringing? Guess who the new teachers will be at Hogwarts!" Sophia cocked her head to the side, her father hadn't said anything about new teachers at school….
Just before she could ask who exactly the teachers were and who were being brought, the front door opened and more than a dozen kids walked into the living room. There was Bill and Fleur's lot: Clemence, Florence, Richard, and Paul. There was Charlie's and his husband's two boys: Lennox and Avery. Fred and Angelina's: Emma, Dean, and Katherine; George and Alicia's lot: Gregory, Ethan, Andrew, and Gracie. Then there was Percy and his wife Elizabeth's daughter, Morgan, and Ginny and Neville's daughter Abigail. And of course Ron and Hermione had their two: Benjamin and Emmy.
"I forgot how many cousins you had…I haven't seen this lot ever-since last year and over the summer," Sophia muttered to Emmy who nodded. Her father and Mrs. Weasley had just walked into the room and five minutes later everyone was piling into four ministry cars and whisked off to King's Cross Station with exactly nine minutes to spare.
All of the Weasley children, (excluding Clemence, Florence, Richard, Lennox, Emma, Katherine, and Gracie), found friends on the train and said goodbye to their parents. The others were either graduated or too young to attend.
"Goodbye Emmy, Benjy, Sophie," Hermione said, hugging all three and giving them each a kiss on the cheek. "Promise to write, and yes Sophie I mean you too," she said looking at the small strawberry blonde whom she had come to love as a child of her own. "Alright Auntie Mione, I promise," Sophia replied, sharing a look with Emmy.
"I will too," Benjamin promised as well as he bent down ever-so-slightly to peck his mother on the cheek. Emmy piped in as well, "I promise to write Mum, just as long as you promise not to let Dad cry over my letters."
Hermione chuckled as Ron wiped a stray tear away, "Ah, make us proud my future Quidditch star-" "Ron, just because you liked to play the dangerous sport in school and want our daughter to, doesn't mean she'll want to do it. She might like to study and make top marks," Hermione said, a smug look firmly set on her face.
Emmy and Benjamin rolled their eyes at their bickering parents and all three of them nearly choked when they ended up snogging, "Blimey! Get a room!" Ben groaned. When the train whistle blew and signaled that there were only five minutes left, Sophia turned to Emmy as they walked towards the train and asked, "Who were your parents bringing? I didn't see any-" "Emmy! Ben!" a voice rang out from the way they had come.
All three kids turned around and standing ten feet away were none other than, "Sweet merlin…its Harry Potter…and Draco Malfoy," Sophia whispered astonished, "Father didn't tell me about them coming."
A memory of some sort flashed through her mind…almost like something from a dream. She remembered those faces…smiling down at her…but she had been much younger and she ultimately thought it was just her imagination running wild.
"Uncle Harry! Uncle Draco! I thought you wouldn't make it in time before we left," Emmy said as she once again waved goodbye to her mum and dad, and led the two men aboard the train. "Bye everyone! I'm going to go sit with Dean and his lot, see you later," Ben said as he walked down to the train's long aisle and disappeared into a compartment.
Emmy led them to an empty compartment towards the back, and the four of them sat down on the seats. Since Sophia was closest to the door--she closed it.
"So…we saw your Mum and Dad snogging like two teenagers trying to chew each others' faces off," both Harry and Draco shuddered at the recent memory. "It was not pretty." Emmy laughed, Sophie let out a nervous chuckle, finding the air to be a bit too hot per se.
The onslaught of silence after that outburst ensued and felt smoldering while Sophia kept her eyes on the floor, and Emmy, sensing her friend's discomfort spoke, "This is my best friend Sophia Snape…she erm…well…she's been my best friend ever since we were three."
Sophia's head snapped up at her name being mentioned and blushed a lovely shade of red. "H-hullo…I'm sorry I've been quite rude…forgetting to introduce myself and all. Its just that…I can't believe I'm sitting on a train in a compartment with the famous Harry Potter, (now Malfoy), and Draco Malfoy," she smiled shyly at both men who smiled back.
"Its quite alright. This is your first year at Hogwarts then?" Harry asked, his sparkling emerald green eyes never leaving Sophia's silver-green ones.
"Well…yes…and no," she said as she looked thoughtfully at Emmy, "my father, Severus Snape as you've probably already guessed, brought me to Hogwarts all of the time when he came for the school year. I usually stayed with Emmy and her brother at their house when Dad was really busy and couldn't always have me stay with him. Or when I really wanted to stay with Em and Benjy I would beg my dad and-" "You're babbling," Emmy said in a sing-song voice, as Sophie steered back onto what she had been initially saying. "But this is my first year as a student and I'm really excited, maybe I'll be sorted into Gryffindor with Em and her family."
Harry and Draco exchanged an unreadable look but said nothing. "Uncle Draco," Em said with a very uncharacteristic smirk on her face.
Draco arched an elegant eyebrow in question. "You wouldn't dare say anything against Gryffindors, after all, Uncle Harry was one. He'll be again once he starts teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts." Harry grinned at his cheeky "niece", momentarily reminding Sophia of herself. She then gasped at what he had said, "Defense Against the Dark Arts? Really?" Harry smiled and nodded, his eyes avoiding hers for an unknown reason. Draco smirked ignoring his husband's strange ways, "I suppose you're right. But I'll be Slytherin when I step into my potions classroom. So Mr. Potter-Malfoy, watch out, because the Ice Prince is here to stay."
Sophia's eyes grew very large and she had gone very pale. Her eyes had turned a strange pale luminescent silver, as if she were in shock or something. Harry was the first one who noticed this, and reached out tenderly to touch the girl's hand, "Are you alright? Did my big-mouth-of-a-git-husband say anything? Is it because-" "But my father…that's his job…he's the potions master," Sophia gasped, voice trembling as if she were about to cry. Harry sent a pointed glare over to Draco and silently cursed him for provoking such a reaction out of this delicate child--his delicate child.
He remembered that when she was around a year old he and Draco took her out to the gardens in the backyard to play. Draco was flying around on his broom and she saw him fall off and break his arm. She had gone dreadfully pale as if she had stopped breathing and it took all of Harry's self-control not to break down at the sight of his daughter and unconscious husband. He sang softly to her before he could do anything about Draco and the sound of his voice seemed to calm her enough. At the time, he had no idea as to why she would react in such a way, but quickly assessed that now it seemed as if she reacted that way to a sense of any kind of threat. Before it had been a threat on Draco's life, now it seemed it was a threat on her father's job. Harry understood.
"No no. You see, Draco is going to be your father's apprentice and substitute for when your father," Harry paused here for a moment, "goes away for business matters.
He can get a bit thick in the head about reigning over Slytherin like he used to when he was a student." Sophie knew that by the way he had said "business" he meant business matters with the Order.
Draco reached out and touched her hand, "I'm sorry if I worried you. And I'm just a smart ass git like Mr. Golden Boy said." The pale blonde could have sworn he felt a light yet strong shock run through his hand as he touched her own. Harry glared at Draco, sending him a look that clearly said, "Call me 'Mr. Golden Boy' one more time and I'll hex you into the seven confines of hell and back.' Draco only smirked at the look, pointedly ignoring him.
Sophia seemed to calm down and her skin turned back to its healthy pallor and her eyes turned back to their silver-green color. Emmy patted her on the shoulder and hugged her tightly, "You're doing fine. They really are great people as you can see. Not just two pompous, madly rich, famous heroes," she whispered jokingly. Sophia smiled at her friend's kind words, "I know Em. Somehow it seems like I've known them forever they remind me of my old imaginary friends." "Of course it does. They have that kind of affect on people," Emmy whispered back, ignoring part of what Sophie had said and engaged them all in another conversation consisting of Quidditch, everyone's favorite sport and pastime.
Although Sophia listened to Emmy and what she said about Harry and Draco having that kind of affect on people, she wasn't quite so sure if it was true for her…maybe there was something more to the story than she knew about…maybe…just maybe….
(A/N: Did you like it? Yes? No? What's your thoughts on this. Cliff hanger? In a sense, yes, but it won't be cleared up until much later. You'll just have to read and find out!
