AN: Well, it's been a while since I have updated and so here I am again with a brand new chapter for all of you guys that have stayed with the fic- despite long waits between chapters. Since I've now found a job I should be quite steady with my updates once again (nothing stops your creative muse more than unemployment!) and hopefully nothing will stop me from getting them out to you...barring the internet going like it tends to do in this household.

An interesting side note: I wrote the first part of the chapter in the middle of a training week for my new job lol. Hopefully I can read my scribbles well and get something half decent out of them.

Disclaimer- I don't own anything and if I did Draco would be mine and I would have a lot of money :)

Chapter Thirteen

Last Chapter:

"I think we have some things to talk about don't you? But first..." Rena stepped up to the table and moved before Severus before grabbing the front of his robes and pulling him towards her and kissing him soundly on the lips and then pulling away laughing at his astonished look, "I've been waiting sixteen years to do that in front of people again!"

The hall erupted into chaos.

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All around them fervent whispers where flying around the great hall as the students and faculty members of the school watched this strange drama taking place before them. It was something new to see something like this and many of them wondered if perhaps someone had spiked the pumpkin juice- surely they had not just seen the most hated and feared professor kiss this woman? It must have been some sort of hallucination. Or perhaps maybe Snape had hexed the woman into it...it didn't seem like something that would just happen out of the blue!

It did not take long however for Dumbledore to turn his attentions back to the school before him, his blue eyes losing the twinkle that was usually ever present. This was not a part of the plan! Now that this had come into the public he would have to sort it out somehow and he doubted Serenity was just going to up and leave, especially after the little display she had given. He watched as her charge stayed beside her and frowned ever so slightly as he watched Harry move back towards Sirius- another thing he would need to sort out. He had thought the man was dead! With him not actually being dead meant he lost the absolute right to use the house as the headquarters and that was not something he was willing to do- Albus Dumbledore was after all a man who always got his own way.

"I think we had better move to somewhere a little more private," Although how private was debatable- everything seemed to get around this school and it could be highly annoying, even more so when he didn't want some things getting out (he made a mental note to cast a good silencing charm before they started the conversation). "Shall we move into the ante-chamber? I'm sure the other students would be grateful to return to their food?" It was hardly a suggestion- the students were not going to get a choice in the matter and they were obviously going to miss out on something interesting....damn the Weasley twins for leaving! They could have done with some of those extendable ears...also, damn Filch and his ban on the items. How annoying of adults.

Rena and her small band of misfits followed the old man into the ante-chamber he had spoken of and even Draco got up and followed (again, the student body watched this in great interest). As soon as they entered the room she watched as he cast the strongest silencing spell he could before he turned to look at them, his face an interesting shade of purple as his rage bubbled up to the surface. Well, this could be interesting she thought to herself, her hand still clasped in Severus' from where he had grabbed it after her display. She would have laughed if the situation hadn't been so serious- it wasn't often you witnessed the great and powerful man have a slight breakdown.

"How dare you come into my school and act in such a way before my students!" He eventually exploded, turning around to face the group who had been behind him up till this point. He watched as Rena simply shrugged ever so slightly before she turned around to look at the room they were in in more detail. It had been a while since she had really been around the castle (not counting her exploits as the cat) and she found that it hadn't really changed very much over the years which she found somewhat disappointing- didn't they think about redecorating?

"Well it does serve you right," She commented lightly in answer to him. She was not going to raise her voice just yet- she had a little more dignity than that and if she managed to hold off her own rage for a little while longer than she would be a very happy bunny. There was nothing worse than losing your cool before you actually needed to and she was going to prove that she could be an adult when the situation called for it.

As they waited for the headmaster to think of something to say, Harry and Draco stood off to the side and slightly behind the adults waiting for someone to say or do something. They didn't know what they were doing here really but had felt the need to be present since this meeting was more than likely going to be about them at some point. An uncomfortable silence seemed to permeate the air as they waited with bated breath- someone was going to crack first and Harry hoped it wasn't going to be Rena...he really didn't want to think about what her temper could be like, he had seen the way she had looked at his 'family' and that had been enough to send shivers down his spine!

Albus himself fumed silently as he too watched what was happening in the room. He knew full well that this time there was no way he could contain the woman's anger- he had gone past that years ago when he had started his long line of lies and deceptions. Besides the fact that she did not trust him anymore than she could throw him, she had managed to get four of his 'loyal' followers to join her! She was a menace to his cause but how was he going to show the others that fact? She was a bad influence on the boy and undeserving of any sort of mercy- she had been a Slytherin after all. Hm, perhaps that could be used in his favour? Harry had always believed that that particular house was full of bad witches and wizards. If he could get the boy to see that again then perhaps he could show him that Rena was simply brainwashing him, preparing him to be handed over to the Dark Lord.

To get Harry back over to his side he would have to win over the guardians of the boy and he would have to start with Sirius- or he would just as soon he had proven that this was indeed Sirius and not someone under the influence of a potion. If he could prove that then it would be easy proving the woman no more than a liar who needed to be gotten rid of as soon as possible. Yes, this could work rather well for him. Now all he needed to do was find a good enough way to prove this....it would be hard since Harry had obviously gotten attached to her.

He now turned his eyes and attention back to the woman and the younger girl who stood just behind her. Who was this girl anyway? He knew for a fact that the woman had no other children and that the family she had stayed with had had a son...so where had the young one come from? With her dark looks and slightly sinister glare she looked like she belonged in the Dark Lord's court and again he would not put it past them to have such a child working within the school- she had already been put into the 'dark' house of the school after all. This girl was obviously not a part of the light and as such was not welcome in his presence, and the woman wasn't any better. Ever since he had met Serenity as a young girl he had been convinced that she would never be good and innocent, no matter how much she tried to put on her act.

By this time Rena was getting bored and agitated at being ignored and her reign of control was starting to wane thin- she did not appreciate being ignored when there were important things to be talked over. Eventually she spoke up, "I told you that I would return one day old man. I told you that when I returned I would stay with my family and live the rest of my life with them; instead you kept me away on that bogus mission, letting me rot away into nothing. You promised that everyone would be kept safe and unharmed and you let them die!" She now swept her arm towards Harry who blinked and took a half step back in surprise.

"You left Harry with those muggles! You left the saviour of the wizarding world in the hands of magic haters! How could you be so...so....stupid! To allow such a thing to happen?" Now that she mentioned it Harry thought to himself, his letter had always been addressed to 'the cupboard under the stairs'- surely that would have been an obvious indicator that something hadn't quite been right at home? Most people would have called social services (or the magical equivalent)! Surely Mrs Figg would have mentioned something since she had eventually revealed that she had been keeping an eye on him for Dumbledore...she had been left alone with him more often than not! Although he felt like he should speak up about this he decided he would leave it for a little longer- there was no point in throwing petrol onto the fire that was already blazing.

Despite the fact that Harry said nothing at the moment Sirius and Remus chose this moment to step forward, each wanting to say something to the old man. "I saw the room Harry was kept in headmaster, it was nothing more than a box room with locks on the door, and even the windows had once had bars on them!" Remus hadn't quite gotten used to the idea of disrespecting the old man yet and why would he? He had spent the better part of his life either looking up to him or looking to him- and without the headmaster he might never have met Harry when he had...and god knows what would have happened if Harry hadn't learnt the Patronus charm! He could very well have died that year so he couldn't hate the man for giving him the position...but he could hate him for being what he was- a manipulative old man who had obviously been in power for too long. It had corrupted him and turned him from a wise and good leader to an idiot who thought about nothing but his own glory.

For Sirius, his own anger to the man was not just the fact that Harry had been left with the Dursley's...it was more to do with the fact that he had allowed his best friend to die- James and Sirius had practically been brothers in everything but blood and he could never forgive the man for allowing them to be found so easily. If only Dumbledore hadn't agreed that Peter would make a better secret keeper they might have lived through that night and still be here- but it hadn't turned out like that and he had been blamed for it. He had no dark mark but for some reason they had easily believed that he was the one to blame; that he was the one who had given up the location of his friend and brother.....and this old man had simply let them take him away! Not once had he spoken up on his behalf, never once coming forward and telling them that Peter had been the keeper of the secret and that it had been Peter, not Sirius, who had given the Dark Lord the chance to eliminate some of the resistance against him. "You never did stand up for me when the Potter's were killed," He started out, "You knew that the secret keeper had changed! That it was never me and could never have been me! James was my brother and you let them lock me away for years for a crime I did not commit!" He looked at Harry, remembering suddenly that he had called the young boy James just before his 'death'- how could he have done such a thing? Of course Harry looked like his father but he was nothing like him really and it must have been awful hearing his own godfather call him by the wrong name. If there was one thing Sirius was good at it was screwing things up every now and then.....he would just have to make sure that this time he made sure to make it up to the boy. Starting with saying he was sorry.

Serenity watched as the two men gave their own reasons for why they had decided to side with her and she felt her heart break ever so slightly as she did so. she had never known that these things had been taking place when she had been away, had never been able to find out (and she had tried....goddess how she had tried) but now that she knew she wanted nothing more than to just borrow Hotaru's glaive and cut the man to pieces- in fact she was more than tempted, she was almost willing to do it to save Harry from the man. She hadn't been blind and she wasn't deaf. This new information made her angry and sad at the same time- the boy hadn't deserved any of this...no one deserved any of this! Remus looked like he could fall apart at any moment and she had no doubts that due to his 'furry little problem' he had been sent on stupid, reckless missions to other werewolves- no doubt trying to talk them into siding with the great old man and his wondrous cause. Sirius on the other hand was just like she would have imagined to be after spending so long either in prison or on the run from the authorities- he was haggard and looking old, weary and generally run down- she might not like the man as much as she liked Remus but he was still her friend and the fact that Dumbledore had allowed them to just take him without even a trial or real evidence made her own blood sing in anger. As a Lunarian she was usually against violence but as a former Slytherin she wanted nothing more than vengeance for all of the pain he had caused. Her fists clenched slightly as she watched his own reactions to what was being said- not that there were many....it was like he was completely indifferent to how they felt towards him and that pissed her off.

"Now now, I'm sure it was simply a misunderstanding on the Dursley's part about how to care for the boy. I'm sure they meant no harm towards him and besides it helped him learn to be independent! If he had grown up in this world then he would have been coddled and allowed to get away with everything instead of learning to have a strong character worthy of being the boy who lived." He had meant his words to be comforting but all they seemed to be doing were to anger the three adults further (not to mention Harry himself), "And as for you Sirius I am disappointed. I did try everything I could to help you but I was the only one who believed in your innocence." Of course he could have easily swayed the others into his way of thinking but it had all worked out how he had wanted it to....until now of course. Damn the woman for coming back to England! If she had remained where she was he would not have to be talking about this right now and he wouldn't have to be defending his own actions- before she had turned up again everyone had followed him blindly and like sheep and that had suited him down to the ground....now everything was being messed up and it annoyed him greatly that he didn't have complete sway like before.

"That's a load of bull!" Harry suddenly burst out, his own patience having run thin as he had listened to what was being said. He had seen the way Rena had looked at his headmaster and even the girl she had brought with her was throwing him looks that could have killed. He didn't need to be able to read minds to know that what was being said was giving him a whole new light in the eyes of the two people who had disliked him since his first year and from the look Draco was giving him from the corner of his eye it was going to be a whole new year for the two boys- but first things first, he needed to put his own point across and then he simply wanted to go to bed and forget that this whole nasty business was happening.

"You left me with the Dursley's and I wouldn't have cared if they had been good and kind people. Instead you left me with people who hated everything I stood for, everything that they weren't! You knew my aunt hated her sister and you left me with her knowing full well I would never be treated right. You had plenty of time to come and get me from the house, hell, even Dobby managed to get through your 'wards'!" He stepped closer to Rena and Remus and moved so that he now stood between them, drawing strength from the two adults. "You addressed my acceptance letter to the cupboard under the stairs for god's sake! Surely that would have told anyone that I wasn't being cared for properly? If you haven't noticed I'm too short and skinny for someone my age! My clothes up until now were all cast offs from my fat pig of a cousin and I was only given my room after they were threatened!" He never noticed his magic was starting to react to his anger and it was only when a hand descended onto his shoulder that he snapped out of his anger and noticed the look of shock on the faces around him. He looked up to the owner of the hand so see Rena looking down on him with such a look on her face and in her eyes that he almost felt like he should cry with her- her own eyes had filled with crystalline tears that were threatening to fall and ruin her face.

"I think we should leave this for now," She spoke softly but you would have had to be an idiot not to notice the underlying fury that was only just being contained. "The children need to sleep and I just don't want to be in the same room as you anymore." She turned around, her cloak swishing along the floor as she did so and one by one the others followed her example and left the room, each heading towards their own quarters for the night and leaving the headmaster to stew in his own anger at being betrayed and left like this.

************

When Harry finally reached his common room he was bombarded with questions as soon as he stepped through the door and for a moment he almost wished he was in another house- like Slytherin- so he could avoid all them all. Questions like: 'Who the hell was that woman?', 'Wasn't that Sirius Black the murderer?' and 'Why did that Slytherin scum follow you out of the room?' He groaned softly and tried to ignore them as he made his way up to his dorm room and once there he threw himseself onto the bed, his thoughts a jumbled mess and his emotions pretty much the same- why did everything happen to him? He was glad that this time he was not alone in his anger but he wished that things were different...he wished that his parents had never died, that Serenity had been in his life always and that he had never refused Draco's offer that year....hell he even wished he had never told the hat to sort him into a house different to the one it wanted him in originally. Things were never going to be the same of course but that didn't matter to him, the past was still stuck in his mind and it was going to be difficult to accept it and look to the future (not that that was a bundle of joy to think about either). His thoughts were cut short when someone else entered the room and his name was called out.

"Harry?" He looked up from where he had burrowed his head into the duvet and clocked Neville who was looking at him in concern. "You alright?" Neville moved to sit onto his own bed- they were after all boys and they most certainly did not do the whole sitting on the same bed as one another and cry and hug like girls did.

"I've been better," Harry shifted so that he too was sitting upright with his back now against his headboard. "But I guess I've been worse as well, some things came out today that's gonna change a few things." He shrugged before looking over the other boy, glad that he hadn't pressed for anything else from him. He knew that if it had been Ron or Hermione they would have kept asking him question upon question until he either gave up and told them or simply blew up in their faces in anger.

"Well, at least they came out. Gran says keeping things bottled up is no good for the soul," Neville seemed to shrug as if saying he wasn't entirely sure if his beloved grandmother was right but it seemed to sound ok. "And if you need to talk I'm always here..." As an afterthought however he did ask the one question that he had been desperate to ask since it had happened. "Who was that woman anyway?"

Harry grinned, despite his bad mood. "That was Serenity," Now how to say this without giving the other boy a heart attack? "She's Snape's wife." He finally blurted out and watched in amusement as Neville's face went from shock, to horror, to amazement before finally settling on confusion.

"Snape is married? No wait, Snape has feelings towards people?" Neville wasn't sure whether the other boy was being serious or having a laugh but he soon decided on the latter- there was no way anyone could joke about the way she had looked at the professor before she had kissed him...no one could fake that kind of glow. He rubbed a hand through his hair as he thought about it. "Man that's just odd..."

"How do you think I felt when I found out? Rena's my god-mother which makes me kinda related to him!" The two of them shared horrified looks, missing the sound outside of the dorm room door as Ron stumbled back away from the door, a look of horror on his own face. Harry was related to the greasy git? How the hell had that happened? Just what had happened over the summer anyway? Ron had been on his way to the dorm room to demand the answers to the questions that were being asked but Neville had gotten there first and Ron had arrived a few moments later just in time to hear the part about the professor having a wife. He shuddered and moved away from the door- he had wanted to try and get some answers but now he knew something he didn't want to and he felt dirty- this was not the kind of information anyone wanted to know! He would have to get Hermione and see if she could get the information they wanted from Harry....there was no way in hell he was going to talk to him anytime soon! Not after finding that out!

"Anyway we better get to bed mate," Harry stretched himself out before grabbing his pyjama bottoms, "You know we have potions first thing and related or not the man still hates me. I don't want to be on the receiving end of his frustrations." He soon vanished from sight and Neville was left pondering the other questions he had wanted to ask- like why Draco had been involved in the talks.

*************

In another part of the castle Draco had been told to take Hotaru down to the dungeons with him- much to the two youngsters' disgust- as Rena and the other adults had vanished off to their own quarters for the rest of the night. This was why he was storming along with the poor girl almost running to keep up with him.

"Slow down you ass!" She hissed at him as she finally managed to keep up with the back of his heels, only to almost run into him when he stopped suddenly and turned to face her with a scowl on his face.

"Don't talk to me like that! You ought to show some manners!" He half sneered, half bellowed at her but she only blinked at him slowly.

"Why? Just because you're the son of Usa-mama isn't going to change anything. I'm not going to show you any manners until you show me the same!" She glared at him, her dark eyes narrow and full of dislike towards the boy before her. She loved her Usa-mama, of course she did, but there was no way in hell she was going to pretend to like the boy just because of that and there was also no way she was going to show any respect until he proved that he was worthy of it....she supposed it was a good thing he didn't know he was a prince- that would have made his ego bigger than it was and then where would she be? She glowered at his back as he turned back around, a scowl on his own face before she followed him once again. She was so glad that Rena hadn't been able to tell anyone of her life in Japan because Hotaru really really didn't want to swear an allegiance to this egotistical jerk. She mentally winced as she imagined her other 'parents' hearing her thoughts and sent them a silent apology- but he really was a jerk and she hadn't known his five minutes!

Another ten silent minutes later and she was clambering through the entrance to the Slytherin common room and was soon confronted with glares from all sides- although she wasn't sure whether it was aimed more at her or towards the boy she had walked behind but soon decided she couldn't care less and simply turned her own glare from a glower to a full blown 'don't mess with me unless you wanna die' look that had more than one person turn away from her quickly. She gave a satisfied smirk before turning her attention to where she was supposed to go for her room, and, once she had found out stalked off up the steps and found the room with her bed- taking note that there were others in the same room as her as well.

Sighing she flopped onto her bed and stared up at the canopy with a frown. She didn't want to be in this room! She didn't want to be in this house either...she wanted to be near her hime so she could keep an eye on her- goddess knows the woman was a magnet for trouble and how on the moon was she supposed to keep her safe from all the way down here? There was no way she was going to let her other guardians know that she was nowhere near the older woman- they would only demand that they too came over from Japan to help keep an eye on the princess. She gave a groan and rolled over onto her stomach and clenched the sheets up into her fists, ignoring the other girls who started to enter the room. She would have to work out what the damn hat had meant about helping herself out. There had to have been a reason for it saying that and she wanted to know what it was.....the problem was that now she was an official student she had no choice but to follow the same rules as everyone else. How annoying! But she might as well make the most of it.

She sighed once again and climbed off the bed so she could grab her night things from her trunk and moved off to the bathroom so she could get ready for bed- tomorrow was going to be a long day and she might as well get plenty of sleep....she had a feeling she would need it after today, and besides, it never hurt to be prepared for every eventuality. She would forget about the annoying male and concentrate instead on what she was going to do about her princess....

*******

Although the four students had gone to bed, the adults were still up and thinking about what had taken place that night.

Rena herself had decided to take a long bath and had spent the better part of an hour soaking in it trying to think of what was going to happen in the future only to fail and instead started to think about what was going to happen to her family. She knew full well that the old man was not going to make her life easy and was prepared for that but what she didn't want to happen was he make things hard for Harry or Draco- whilst the one was her son the other might as well have been and she found herself more than a little protective of him and knew that whatever was planned was going to be something she hated with a passion. She sighed as she finally pulled herself from the now lukewarm waters and made her way into the bedroom where Severus waited for her silently. She would have to think about it more tomorrow...for now she simply wanted to curl up and forget about everything that had happened in the past and what could happen in the future- all she wanted right now was to think about her husband and his arms around her....

Whilst she had been soaking in the bath Severus had been waiting in their room thinking about everything that had happened earlier that evening. He had always known that Harry was never exactly like his father but he had never been able to look past his prejudices, had always assumed that the golden boy had been well looked after and could do no wrong. The problem he was faced with now was that he was the one who was wrong...the boy had had no privileged background and had not been molly coddled by his family- instead he had been abused and neglected and his own actions had not helped in any way shape or form. He had known full well of the agreement between his wife and Lily Potter but had never acted upon it when Lily had died- he should have stepped forward and taken the boy in but after what had happened with his own family and with James he had never been able to bring himself to do anything. Of course now he was twinged with regret and guilt and when he looked up into his wife's eyes it crashed upon him worse than before- but she had already forgiven him for it....the problem was he couldn't forgive himself! He wrapped his arms around her and burrowed his head into her neck as he thought about what he had done and what he would have to do to correct his past mistakes.

Remus and Sirius had said nothing to one another since earlier that day but it was alright; they didn't need to. they both knew how the other felt about this whole mess and instead they thought about Rena and what was going to happen with Harry now- they both knew that they could lay no real claim on the boy now and the two of them had decided that they didn't want to- Rena was more than capable of raising him now and she would give him a good, loving and stable home...something that the two men couldn't do. It was not a solution they particularly liked but it was something that would work better than anything else. Now all they had to think about was what was going to happen in the rest of the war. Apart from wondering how the headmaster was going to take all of this they still had a homicidal maniac on the loose who wanted to kill Harry! Looked like they would need to take each day as it comes and pray for the best. What else could they do?

Albus himself was sitting in his office alone, a glass of fire whisky in his hand as he thought about what had been slowly happening over the last few years. It had all come crashing down around him tonight and he was angry at himself for allowing it to happen. How could he have allowed the woman anywhere near the boy? How could she have even slipped back into the country without him being alerted? There was something about that woman that was an enigma; a puzzle that needed to be broken and he was going to work out what it was- he would not allow her to ruin everything he had planned out! The boy was needed to destroy Voldemort and so what if he died in the process? All that mattered at the end of the day was his own eternal glory...and a few causalities along the way were of no consequence to him. He just needed to make sure she didn't get in the way...perhaps he could find a way to convince everyone that she was indeed a minion of the Dark Lord? And that younger girl as well? He down the rest of the glass and set it upon the desk top with a loud 'clink'. He had to think this through, she had already ruined many of his plans (namely with getting Draco back under her wing and the whole Harry thing) and he did not intend to let her ruin anything else!

Chapter End
Right then, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Next time there will be a little more interaction between Harry, Ron and Hermione as the two confront him on everything that has happened. There will also be a bit between Hotaru and Draco. Please leave a review and any suggestions you want to make about anything feel free- I'm always open to ideas!