Rip Out The Wings
DaggersBloodPain
Chapter Fourteen
In My Daughter's Eyes
Lilah was excited for today's class. She would get the chance to spend some time with her dad. Severus and her had not gotten the chance to speak a great deal since all this happened. She knew they would have to focus on training for the most part, but it would be the most contact she would get with him for quite a while.
She was nearly bouncing in her chair as she tried to calm herself enough to enjoy her breakfast. It seemed a near impossible task, she was just too hyper. She imagined the novelty of having a family to meet would fade as time went on, but for the longest she had assumed she had no family.
Grabbing her cloak she fled her room to head towards their training room, information provided by yet another note. She walked a bit quicker through the halls than the past few mornings, but slowed down her pace enough she wasn't seen running. Her lesson from Narcissa had outlawed running unless there was an emergency.
Entering the small room she had been directed to cautiously, her lesson with Bellatrix still firmly in her mind, she saw the room was empty save for a desk with two chairs and her father sitting in one of the chairs. At his wave she came over and sat in the chair opposite to him.
"I have checked in with Miss. Granger at Hogwarts. The Weasley boy was at fault for the scare. He had been attempting to tell others your secret and she was forced to silence him and Obliviate him." Severus informed her.
"I figured that might be what had happened. How has Dumbledore explained Harry's absence?" She asked eagerly.
"Remember Lilah not as much time has passed for them as it has for you." Severus reminded. "So far you have only missed one day of classes, right now he had told whoever asked that you are sick and quarantined in the hospital wing for privacy. There is an Order meeting tonight, I imagine he is going to have everyone looking for you if you do not turn up by then, if the Order can not find Harry he probably has some excuse planned out already."
"I can't wait to hear how people react to this. I actually find the whole circus amusing now that Harry no longer exists. I hated it when I was in the middle of it though." Lilah confided.
"You really didn't like your fame did you?" Severus realized.
"I hated every second of it, before I found any of this out all I knew was I was being demonized or admired for having my parents die. Who wants fame that badly they would pay with the lives of their family? It sure wasn't me. Even with Dumbledore's fake version of events it wasn't even my power that saved me it was Lily's love." Lilah ranted.
"I never thought about it like that," Severus grudgingly admitted. "I just assumed you were too young to remember them and all you knew was the fame. I was sure it had gone to your head. Lily really was a good friend in school. That was one thing that was not a lie, even when I thought you were her son and not my daughter, I fought to protect you because of her. Dumbledore probably fed you some line about a life debt from James but that is a lie." He glanced up at Lilah's dark crimson eyes and for a heartbeat wished he was still looking at the bright emerald of his best friend. The last thing that had connected Lily to the land of the living was gone.
"What really happened back then? I know some of what I was told is the truth but most is lies, so what happened?" Lilah demanded.
"Black really did trick me into finding Lupin in his transformed state, I thought Lily had been in danger, I may not have loved her but she was one of my only friends. When Potter heard what his best friend had done he pulled me back from what they thought would be my death. The thing about life debts is they are only owed if the person doing the saving is actually doing it to help the person in danger. Potter was not concerned about me, he was worried his best friends would be expelled. I protected you because you were Lily's son, not because I owed anything to James Potter." Severus explained haltingly.
"Wait if that's true about life debts, than Pettigrew owes me nothing, Dumbledore thought he would owe a life debt but I didn't do it to save his life. I did it to keep Sirius and Remus out of Azkaban." Lilah put together.
"True, and if you still believed the headmaster and at some point in the future expected that life debt to save you it would probably end up killing you." Severus warned.
"Well I am glad I know the truth now. Thank you for telling me. Dumbledore had told me the truth of most of the story, he just twisted the outcome so I would be more moldable." Lilah answered.
"I think we had better start getting some work done, don't you? Your father will not be happy if we wasted all our training time talking. For today I am going to test your current knowledge of your classes. We have the advantage of filling in any gaps and teaching you everything the right way." Severus laid out the plan.
Lilah agreed and they started the review with first year and worked their way up, Severus conjuring up parchment and quill to take notes on Lilah's progress. There was a lot of room for improvement, it would not be easy to teach her everything she needed but they would manage somehow.
They ended the lesson with a tentative hug, "I am glad we got to talk today." Lilah whispered.
"Thank you for being honest, I am truly sorry I couldn't see how much you hated the spotlight." Severus replied.
Lilah pulled out of the hug with a small smile on her face. She was soon sent on her way with yet another stack of books to read, but she didn't care, her dad and her were finally starting to understand each other.