Another rope dashed up into the cloudy, deafening sky. This one was blue and black, intertwined together in a panicked concerto of magic and survival. Dudley watched as the rope struggled to find something to wrap. It slid down. But then it surged back up. Through the clashing thunder and the abundant rain Dudley could hear screaming and fighting from the falling car.

He had seen a bird falling from the sky. It was lit in a million shades of orange and red, but when it got struck by lightning it fell from the clouds and onto the wet, slippery ground. Promptly, it turned to ash.

The rope wrapped around Dudley's waist. His eyes widened and he screamed as he felt being pulled. ''Stop it! You got me!'' he shouted, but didn't think he could be heard. Not everyone had the same lung capacity as the woman in the car. ''Please!'' He dug his feet into the ground, but the pull was unmanageable. Tears welled in Dudley's eyes and he remembered his parents saying that magic was nothing but trouble. He couldn't help but agree. The cliff neared. Dirt rose and cascaded like a breaking wave from either side of his dragged feet. With all of his strength Dudley leaned backwards and hoped not to die. He prayed to God not to die.

Death was nearby, watching with an amused expression.

''HELP!'' Dudley shouted and just as he was about to plummet downward everything stopped. The burden which dragged him down had completely stopped its descent. Dudley's tear stained cheeks flushed. He shakily leaned forward to see two people; a black haired woman was waving at him to go backwards while a blond man was trying to shout at him instructions.

Dudley didn't know how the car had turned feather light in an instant, but he could only go backwards. So he did. It was a spell of some kind and it wasn't any of his business. But it was! It was as they used him as a couch pulling horse.

From the driver's window emerged a head. ''Don't listen to a word they're saying! They're criminals and need to die.''

Dudley was entering a bloody moral conundrum was what he was. It showed on his face.

The black haired woman shouted then: ''Don't listen to the driver; she's a bitter woman who made a mistake and suffered for it. She's terrified of herself and won't even help me save her only son. What kind of monster is that?''

The supposedly terrible mother shot back: ''The blond is a Nazi! You hate Nazis, don't you?!''

All of the movies Dudley had seen with his dad were of showing the might of the British in a war against the Nazis. So, yes: Nazis were very bad and they needed to go to jail to atone for their crimes against humanity.

''Go back, boy! The spell for lightness won't last for long and you want to live, don't you?''

''Boy, he's bluffing. He hates non magical folk and he will happily let you fall.''

''Boy!'' The black haired woman, again. ''I will speak with your mother if you do not bring us up this instant!''

Dudley looked ill at the prospect.

The supposedly bad mother: ''She's lying - What's your name, sweetheart?''

''Dudley.''

''Dudley? What a terrible name!'' The black haired woman couldn't help herself. Dudley found out her name was Walburga. The blond's name was Gellert Grindelwald and he was apparently some sort of Wizard Hitler (genocide was not the answer), the mother was Eileen, and the newest addition to the crew was a man named Tobias. He looked the most tired of them all.

''Dudley, son,'' Tobias said, ''what do you do?''

Walburga and Gellert Grindelwald held hands and outstretched their free ones towards Dudley to maintain their joint effort. Using magic was like training muscles; from lack of use they atrophied and were hard to get back into. One of them had died and come back to a body that was surging on adrenaline and nothing else. Another had escaped from a heavily warded prison and recently regained his eyesight.

Eileen and Tobias said that they didn't use magic. Dudley, remembering his parents' teachings, gravitated more to their opinions and thought about what a good thing he would be doing if he let them all fall. Fear crawled over his skin like a tide of unease drowned everything in its path.

''I'm a student.'' Dudley answered Tobias. He gripped the rope wrapped around his waist with steel fingers. It frightened him. But the warm tone of the ordinary man (like Dudley) helped ease him into a more approachable light. ''I study, uh, law.''

''Are you a good student? What are your marks?''

Dudley looked ill. They were not good at all. In fact, he rather wished that he didn't have to face his parents with them. Law was too hard. Dudley would rather do anything except law. But medical school was too long. Nothing that was acceptable seemed to brighten Dudley's interest. He said this to Tobias who nodded sagely.

''I know.'' Tobias said, calmly. ''It must be very hard. I'm a chemist, you know. Nasty business.''

''Oh?'' Dudley nodded. People did that often when someone was speaking: opened their mouths with prompting sounds and made up perfect spots for nodding. It was called active listening without actually listening.

''Yes, yes.'' Tobias said. ''Wouldn't it be easier if you didn't have to face your parents?''

Walburga gasped in outrage. ''DON'T YOU DARE MANIPULATE THIS BOY INTO JUMPING OFF THE CLIFF! YOU'VE DONE ENOUGH, MUGGLE!'' She said the word muggle with the same distaste as his mother said FREAK. Dudley's head whirled and he had to sit down on the cliff. The rain turned to drizzle and slowly faded, but the damage was done and if Dudley didn't jump down into death's embrace he'd certainly catch some sort of cold – or die of hypothermia... it was hard to tell what fate had in store for him.

''Do you know my cousin? He's magic.'' Dudley asked. He wondered often what had come of Harry Potter.

''Most certainly!'' Walburga answered. ''The magical world is small and we all know each other.''

''In the biblical sense, too.'' Eileen said. Tobias wheezed with laughter, but then it died as he gestured both Eileen and Walburga. Eileen gave a nod and an apathetic hand gesture which signified: Eh.

With the storm gone, Dudley could hear them all much more clearly. Mostly, of course, because they were all loud people with even louder egos. It wasn't anything that Dudley wasn't used to. His ego was loud. His father's ego was loudest.

''Um, pro and con list?'' Dudley tried to implement a system that would make everyone happy. Walburga was first to boo at him and say that if he didn't want to live and if he wanted to disappoint his mother and make her sad that he should jump.

''Emotional blackmail.'' Grindelwald whistled in awe. ''Truly you are a connoisseur of this trade.''

Walburga did a hair flip and glowed at the praise: ''Thank you.''

Eileen started up the car again. It pulled Dudley forward in an abrupt tug.

''You suicidal bitch!''

''I hate him.''

Eileen startled at the venom. She had never heard it in such gravity from Abraxas. His pupils were dilated and his form was shaking with lividness. It amplified anger, that white powder.

''Hate whom?'' Eileen asked, folding her hands over her lap like a courteous pureblood lady that she had been conditioned to be. Tobias was never present during her dealings with Abraxas. They dealt in business and sold potions together. The galleons they raked in were wonderful. Eileen was thrilled; so thrilled that she allowed Abraxas many liberties. His one was to have a taste at the powdered ingredient. She told him that under no circumstances should he eat it. So he snorted it. It made no difference to Eileen. Fairy blood would protect him if she just never let him take more than how much she'd calculated.

She enjoyed Abraxas so high strung and fast. He animated her and told her that he disliked his wife, that he didn't know what Tom was up to and it misbalanced him, and that he feared for the lives of purebloods in a world led by a mudblood.

''I hate Leach.'' He said and jumped high from the chair he'd been sitting in. Next he paced holes into the carpet below his feet. ''That mudblood is going to make us second class citizens, Eileen.''

Eileen had read Leach's political pillars and found them amusing. She had a grudging respect for the mudblood because one time Walburga had tried putting the fear of purebloods into his heart by making him believe that purebloods bathed in the blood of mudbloods. This had backfired spectacularly when Nobby Leach had tilted his head, knowingly smiled, and asked, ever so politely in a tone of someone fearless: ''So, does that mean that you bathe in mud like pigs?''

Eileen remembered that for a whole month it was the only thing Hogwarts talked about. The abruptly escaped and rare guffaw of Tom Riddle echoed throughout the castle walls for weeks. Nobby Leach could always pull down his mask of disciplined and careful separation. Abraxas Malfoy didn't even see Nobby Leach then. No, he had been too busy fretting over marks and crying at the prospect of returning to a war zone his mother made at home to care for a mudblood.

But after?

Abraxas Malfoy sniffled and rubbed at his nose furiously hard. It was running and he was asking Eileen for his wand. She never gave him a wand during these periods. It was at her home that he indulged in this manner and it was without a wand.

But his wandless magic was unparalleled. An accio was such a simple charm. Eileen worried that that look of contempt would rise and rise until he wouldn't care for the deal they'd struck.

''Why do you hate him?'' This was not the Abraxas she knew and loved and hoped would befall her when Walburga had discarded him for her own cousin. She always lapped up Walburga's scraps and Abraxas had seemed like the most delicious kind. She had him now. Eileen had Abraxas in her home, draped over her chairs, eating her food, drinking her drinks (amortentia was so simple, thought Eileen and remembered that she loved Tobias and loved their two year old son, too – but that she wished to devour Abraxas)

Eileen's home had vastly changed in the two years of her business taking off. But the last few days had changed completely because Abraxas paid more for the cocaine he'd took a craving too than the potions ever could be sold. Greed was a fickle thing. Eileen had completely given in.

Severus wobbled over to Abraxas and Abraxas picked him up with ease and swung him about, delighting in the small magical child. ''I like him. He reminds me of your father a lot.'' Abraxas jabbed without meaning to. Eileen hadn't spoken to her father in three years.

Severus called Abraxas 'Uncle Ab' and wanted to be carried by him everywhere.

''Don't indulge him so much.'' Eileen warned. ''He won't want to walk ever if you do.''

''So what?'' Abraxas laughed and it was like an enchanting sound of a waterfall right after the ice from winter had thawed. ''I'll get Tom to teach him to fly without a broom.''

Eileen held a healthy dose of fear near her heart that should have been a dose bigger. It was in form of a voice that told her, not gently at all: You are playing with fire. You are playing with fiendfire. You will get burned badly.

''Does Tom know?''

''About what?'' It was so difficult to see Abraxas holding her son so fondly. She didn't know how he acted towards his own son, but she tried not to think of Lucius or Antoinette or Tobias.

''This.'' Eileen gesture to the cocaine neatly arranged in lines. Then herself. Then her son. ''Everything. You keep running here and I wonder why.''

Yvette Malfoy was dead. The rumour mill spoke in hushed tones of a serpentine venom at work. Everyone looked at Riddle and waited. He was slowly making a name for himself. No, not a name: a title.

Abraxas stilled. It was an unfathomable thing to see regularly, let alone when he was high as a hippogriff. Eileen tentatively reached for him. His eyes were the purest silver she'd ever seen. Not even Elektra Nott had eyes like these and she had lived in Faerie for a day.

''It's none of your business.'' Abraxas seethed.

Eileen felt her hand slashed with invisible knives. She recoiled and nodded, curtly. ''All right, Abraxas.''

After the high went away he apologized and told her that he liked it. ''I feel in control.''

Eileen did not think this was how control looked like. She bit her tongue and remembered the gold. Remembered her son and her husband and wondered if Severus would look exactly the same except blond where he a Malfoy?

''I should not have asked.'' Eileen said.

''You're right.'' Abraxas said and surprised her with the cutting, quiet tone. ''You should not ask me these things. I come here because I can. I do not ask you why you invite me over.''

''You could.'' Eileen's voice wobbled with fragile hope. ''You could ask me.''

Abraxas was handsome and fey and otherworldly and depended on her. Perhaps? Eileen didn't dare hope truly. Perhaps?

''I will never ask you that.'' Abraxas sincerely cut her down. ''I have no room for unimportant information. You have made yourself into this kind of person on your own.''

''Unimportant.'' Eileen smiled painfully. ''Yes, I do understand.''

She dosed his next batch of cocaine with a drop of amortentia, but when he asked for her stuff she chickened out and gave him a clean batch. Some lines she would not cross, no matter how much rejection stung. But she revelled in seeing him dependant on her. Sometimes she was cruel and wished to say that without her muggle husband he would not be getting his fix. But then reason reared her ugly head and told her to enjoy the things she did have.

Tobias loved her. Eileen loved him back, but she also wanted to own something. She wanted to be the pureblood her family had desperately wanted her to be. She wanted to have a pureblood lord for a husband and be a socialite and have balls and friends and laugh at people like Riddle as if they were plagues set forth on their pure world. Nobby Leach and all of the other mudbloods sullied it and Abraxas Malfoy kept mentioning the Minister almost every week that he came. Eileen refused to see past the words and glimpse at the brewing action.

Abraxas played with Severus fondly and called him a tabula rasa worth protecting and nurturing. ''Half bloods are perfectly decent.''

''Is that what you tell yourself while you fuck Riddle?'' Eileen's coarse tongue surprised Abraxas. He nearly dropped her two year old son.

''No.'' Then the speed came back, but so did the sadness – the sadness overcame him every time he finished the high. ''How do you live with yourself, I wonder?'' Abraxas asked. ''How do you think I feel every time I see you and know you've ruined yourself by laying with a muggle.'' It was in the most Malfoy fashion to not let her get a single word in: ''Disgusted, Eileen. I feel utterly disgusted.''

''Do you?'' Eileen said. ''Do you feel desperate, also?''

Whenever Abraxas got high he would stop. A twitching ball of nerves and bone and muscle and magic would stand in her lab and stare through anyone that came. His eyes were vivid and grey. Not the dark grey that they usually were. This was doing something to him, amplifying him in a way the regular magic amplifying potion didn't.

''What do you see when you take it?'' Eileen had taken Divination. She knew a seer when she saw one and it was ironic that Abraxas would be one after he had spent such a long time convincing everyone he hadn't a single seer bone in his body. Arithmancy was the trade of those that were incapable of channelling that power. It was precise and didn't garner fear. No prophecy was ever made with Arithmancy.

''I,'' Abraxas drummed his finger hard against the counter. His magic lashed out at his surroundings, but he never gave her a definite answer. Always: ''Something to look forward to.''

They would conclude their business before Tobias came back from his weekly fishing trips.

Eileen grew restless. Tobias grew paranoid. Severus grew.

Most importantly, Abraxas' hunger grew.

Eileen was tired of how little he offered her. So she took more. She remembered refusing to sell him the cocaine and he'd been positively livid, but then he'd been put in a bargaining mood. Businessmen like Abraxas could be talked to. Eileen remembered grabbing hold of Abraxas' hand and making a deal with him that he would act as Severus' guardian in the magical world. He needed a back to lean back on when entering the world of magic with so many pureblood snakes with venomous tongues and incantations. Abraxas had found it too small a price to pay and he'd happily accepted to take on Severus as his charge were Eileen and Tobias unwilling to deal with him. Eileen had smiled proudly at herself and her good deed for her son. Malfoy influence was the next best thing after the influence of Walburga Black.

Severus was six and really liked Abraxas. Abraxas was not six and wanted nothing more than to forget that he had a body that his existence forced him to be in, with all of the Malfoy duties and fatherly restrictions. He rubbed his hands and demanded that Eileen gave him more. That he needed more. That he needed wanted craved desired wanted needed pleaded begged for more.

It was in 1966 after the second election of Minister Nobby Leach that Abraxas prostrated himself on his knees and begged Eileen. His hair was dishevelled and his hands were bonier than they tended to be. The drug, she'd asked Tobias, did it make you lose your appetite? He thought these were all hypothetical questions (as hypothetical as Tom Riddle's questions to Slughorn tended to be (Abraxas' gave away so much information in so little time so often)). Apparently it did. So Abraxas ate his own magic and begged.

''What does Tom say about this?'' Did Riddle even care? Eileen wouldn't were she in his position. She would be enjoying the splendour of living in Malfoy Manor and being lavished in gifts by an open-minded lord.

''Tom?'' Abraxas raked his brain carefully for memories of Tom and him interacting last. His expression was blank and he waved Eileen's question away fast. ''I need the blasted cocaine, Eileen. Won't you give it?''

''What do you see?'' Eileen asked curiously. It burned and burned and burned her. But as a warning she did not heed.

''It isn't any of your business.'' Abraxas snapped. He thought himself clairvoyant. Clairvoyant people were the hardest to convince to stop. Eileen drowned in a sea of regrets she had made herself jump in.

''What about if you try and put a formula to your vision?'' To combine divination and arithmancy was a fool's task. Abraxas tried.

Divination was not fact.

Arithmancy was.

This was where they differed.

Abraxas Malfoy had never taken divination and relied on Eileen's help to try and bring those two branches together, thinking that if they succeeded that they would be able to see the future in a precise and true manner.

Eileen fretted.

Tobias and Severus returned after their trip and saw Eileen with a man too fast for anyone's liking. She was clasping her hands together to stop them from shaking. Tobias saw Abraxas, and saw his wife's fearful expression. ''Leave,'' she mouthed. She begged, worried for the safety of her husband.

Abraxas turned from his research and observed the muggle. Like a fey did its prey.

Eileen clutched Abraxas' wand and thought that it was a decorative piece for him. That he rarely needed one, especially with the boost of the cocaine.

''Is this the pet?'' Abraxas finally asked, after a minute of dangerous silence. Eileen held her breath. Tobias had a tight hold on Severus' shoulder, knowing how to get a feel of a room.

''Yes.'' Eileen said. Tobias' expression flickered with hurt. ''That's him. He's useful, isn't he? At least when I'm tired, he minds the child.''

Abraxas laughed. He joyfully clapped and noticed that his hands were smeared with ink. Next he willed it away with a whisper and no wand movement. Eileen praised his skill. He bowed to her and winked. Eileen knew that pureblood men were the fragile sort, but she didn't quite know they were so easily threatened by muggles.

Tobias would not be swayed. However much Abraxas was threatened by seeing a muggle treated as kindly as a wizard, Tobias was overcome with a jealous stab that forced him to engage in a passive aggressive manner towards Abraxas. Eileen wished that they hadn't met yet. She wished for a way to turn back time and start over.

In the most muggle fashion – in the most Tobias fashion, the chemist grabbed hold of Abraxas' hand in a handshake and ground out his name: ''Tobias Snape, it's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Malfoy.''

Abraxas looked ill. He pulled back his hand as if it had been scalded with boiling water. Eileen lost interest the more she saw him interacting with her husband. It was good to dream, but in the end she could never be like that again.

''Lord Malfoy.'' He squeaked.

Eileen saw a faded smile on Toby's face. She glared at him to tone it down. He didn't. Of course he didn't. He had finally cornered the man his wife saw weekly.

Severus rushed to hug Abraxas, but Eileen stopped him. She scooped him up in her hands and told him that he could go to bed. Then she set him down and because she'd raised an obedient child didn't have to worry. Severus would do as told and he did just that as he rushed up the stairs to his room. She could not leave Toby and Abraxas alone.

''You're very well behaved for a muggle.'' Abraxas said. Tobias' eyes flashed indignantly, but he was spelled to silence by Eileen's quick and silent wandwork, her cedar want she never went anywhere without. To Eileen, Abraxas said: ''Good job in training him.'' The worst part was that he meant it as a compliment.

''I,'' Eileen's voice cracked. She did not know how to reply to that.

Abraxas was good at reading the room. Just as Tobias. He asked where his willow wand was. Eileen hid it behind her back while mainting a firm grip on her wand in her other hand.

''You have nothing to worry about. We all have our distractions.'' Abraxas placated her. He would not harm Tobias.

''Is Riddle yours?''

Abraxas shrugged. He was coming down from the speed and his face wasn't as tensely pulled as before. It was relaxing into sadness and lethargy. He rubbed his face with his shaky hands. ''Arithmancy is the process. Divination is the end. No matter how much I work, Eileen, I can't seem to connect the two. There's no process for the end I see.''

''Oh.'' Eileen said, wary. ''Then isn't the end wrong?'' It had to be if Abraxas Malfoy couldn't find a way to get to the end he saw in his drugged state via arithmancy.

''No.'' Abraxas said hoarsely. He clung to the possibility. ''That is the one thing that isn't wrong.'' The air around them swirled malignly with magic. Tobias could feel it building and concentrating from Abraxas. It was like a wave of desperation and longing.

''What do you see?'' Eileen whispered. She had the clarity of mind to stand in front of her husband to shield him.

''I see myself.'' Abraxas finally relinquished his hold on the information he held so tightly and firmly close to his chest. Each word that came out Eileen had spent years prying out like a dentist did an unruly child's tooth. ''I see Tom. We're happy. There's no Antoinette, there isn't any Malfoy legacy to uphold and hold over my head, and there isn't a child to hold me back. I am not trapped, Eileen. That's what I see.'' Then. ''Would you have made me feel trapped?''

Eileen blinked fast. She didn't avert her gaze, but she would not cry. ''I can't know that, Abraxas.''

''It's too late for that now anyway.'' Abraxas said. He passed by the Snape family and on his way out – through the fireplace, he said: ''If I have to see this thing again, Eileen, I'll take my business elsewhere.'' In green flames he disappeared.

Eileen knew he'd be back. She still had his wand. Forgetful creature that he was, Abraxas would return and try to get back in her good books.

Tobias told Eileen to cut Abraxas off. ''Tell someone!'' Eileen finally broke down crying. ''Tell his wife, tell anyone! Someone else needs to know about this. We… I can't help you.'' Tobias implied that he thought Abraxas may hurt Eileen.

''He wouldn't. Abraxas is… he isn't violent. He's just sad, Toby.''

''Sad? That's sad to you?'' Tobias raged with good right. ''He looked ready to kill.''

''Kill?'' It was Eileen's laugh that startled her more than the words themselves. ''Abraxas would never kill. He's scared of using the unforigivables.''

''Loads of different ways of killing a person.'' Tobias said. Eileen knew that was true. A frightening ball lodged in her throat and made swallowing her deeds hard.

In 1968 everything changed.

Eileen saw that Abraxas came often with a book he said he had taken from Walburga Black's library. ''Tom can't go in there. It's warded against him.''

''No one can go through Black Family wards.'' Eileen recited. Severus was at school and Tobias was going to take him to a rugby game afterwards.

''What's the book called?''

It was written in Old English, but Abraxas was using translating spells freely as he flipped through it. ''Spells you won't believe are legal.''

Eileen thought that sounded promising in a chaotic sort of way. She waited for him to ask about the cocaine, but this time he didn't ask right away. It was a strange day. Their routine was already being dismantled and turned over.

''That's a fun way of naming a book.''

Abraxas knew the Snape residence home like the back of his hand. He'd been coming punctually every week for years and without taking his gaze from the book in question he manoeuvred himself to an arm chair and said: ''Do you have felix felicis?''

''Yes.'' Eileen did. She made sure a drop of it was always in her food before dealing with Abraxas. It made her feel safe. Tobias was instructed to drop a drop on his tongue before heading back home.

This delighted him. His magic was abuzz with beautiful cracks and brightness. ''Good. Could I have some?''

Eileen didn't dare ask why. ''It'll cost you.''

Abraxas laughed. ''You have become such a businesswoman, Eileen. Truly you astound me.'' Flattering her was his tactic of throwing her off tact. It didn't work anymore. She could see the withdrawal symptoms in his twitches and the way his gaze fluttered between anger and hunger.

Once the exchange was finished and he had the felix felicis in his hold, Abraxas looked at it with reverence. ''You are the best potioneer in our world right now, you know.''

''Thank you.'' Eileen was not one to think herself beneath true praise. It was simply acknowledging fact.

''Leach is,'' Abraxas always somehow came back to Leach and his politics. Eileen didn't know where the fascination came from. Who was the one filling his head with this? Did he honestly believe his own words? ''Oh, Eileen! He's positively insane. Did you hear what he said in his last speech?''

Eileen didn't. She hadn't even voted for him in 1962 or 1966. She'd simply read his political statements while he ran that hilarious campaign. ''What did he say?''

''He's giving jobs to Squibs! Jobs that could be easily going to purebloods and he's just taking them away!''

Eileen couldn't help but snort. Abraxas fixed her with a spearing gaze. ''What?''

''Do you want a job?''

''No – but that's beside the point, Eileen.''

''Purebloods are independently wealthy, Abraxas. Leach knows, trust me. He isn't doing anything that could put purebloods in harm's way. Without the pureblood vote he's nothing.''

Abraxas fumed. He called Eileen a traitor not only to blood, but to her family's values. ''You're defending him!''

''I am not.'' She really wasn't. ''I'm stating fact.''

''What about his attempts to bring more mudbloods and halfbloods into the Ministry? There are enough of them!''

''May I remind you that Riddle is a halfblood thought to be a mudblood.'' Abraxas scoffed and said that Riddle didn't care for the Ministry. Eileen continued: ''Leach is a phenomenon that fought tooth and nail to get to the position he is at. Purebloods hold monopoly over wizengamot. Let the menial jobs get taken over. This is still a pureblood world.''

Abraxas clutched the book with steel hands. His finger was caught between pages as a bookmark and Eileen's curiosity burned. She could taste fire on her tongue. She could taste what being flayed would feel like.

''That's how they get you!'' Abraxas shouted. ''That's how they get you – with the promises of still being on top, but they're all slowly getting together to fight against the one common enemy. I will not be destroyed by halfbreeds and mudbloods and halfbloods!'' Then, the most revolting thought: ''And the squibs! The squibs can vote, Eileen!''

''Squibs could vote for a long time before Leach, but they just never had anyone to vote for.''

Abraxas scowled, but he pocketed the felix felicis vial for later use. ''That's not the worst of it.'' His voice had softened and Eileen, in turn, sharpened her hearing.

''What is?''

''He wants to take Samhain from me.''

Nobby Leach pushed for integration of muggle holidays with pagan ones. It was his most controversial idea yet.

Samhain was sacred. Eileen still celebrated it with her family. But she also sent Severus to go trick or treating because he was a child and children should never have a fascination with the dead. There could be a balance. Abraxas asked for the thing he came here for and Eileen didn't get a chance to explain it to him.

''What's next? He's already pushing for muggle studies to be enhanced and changed. What's next? Is he going to make us believe in his god?'' Nobby Leach was as interested in forcing his religious belief on others as Walburga Black was interested in hosting Riddle over for tea in her lovely Black home.

''I hardly believe-''

''I've read up on it, Eileen! Mudbloods made this spell – oh it's disgusting mon Merlin! It was mad by some Christians to convert pagans – well I'll show him! This is just a fancier and slower way of doing it. I get Leach's agenda! He won't win, I can tell you this much!''

Abraxas was drowning in his own visions and his nose – Eileen really did wonder if he could even smell after using it for such a long time. Not that there weren't spells to give him back his sense of smell, they just needed to be applied monthly.

''Oh that really packs a punch.'' His voice raised an octave and he did sound like a peacock. Eileen asked him after his birds and he was momentarily distracted. A loving smile coated his lips and he told her all about his peafowls and what they were up to.

He threw the book on the armchair and paced around her living room, finding himself incapable of sitting down. His magic buzzed and tore the wallpaper off from her walls. Eileen fixed this accidental magic (was it accidental, really?) with a wave of her wand. She was about to ask Abraxas for his wand when her eyes caught sight of the bookmarked page.

The Theophilius Hex of Enlightenment.

Eileen bent forward and squinted as she tried to read the text. Some men Cyril and Methodius made it in order to spread Christianity faster on magical kind. They were muggleborn wizards themselves.

Abraxas tore the book away from Eileen's sight and shoved it deep in his extended pocket (after shrinking it). He next grasped his willow wand for good measure and disapparated without a word.

Eileen felt like an accomplice in something terrible.

Abraxas stopped coming.

Tobias and Eileen were terrified.

It was him that voiced his thought: ''Do you think he's… dead?''

''He didn't take much-''

''He's been taking it for years.''

''I never let him take enough to pose a threat on his life. Fairy blood filters.''

''But-''

It was raining outside. They huddled together and waited for the other shoe to drop. Eileen could feel it, the chill oozing off of the walls in their home. They never lit the fireplace. Eileen never wrote any letters to Malfoy Manor. She never had. If Abraxas Malfoy had died then … then neither Snape wanted to think what would happen when they tracked his overdose to them.

Severus slept soundly.

Thunder blasted in a maddening screech. Lightning shot straight in their front yard and Eileen pushed Tobias down to the floor with her on top of him. She clutched her wand close to her chest. The lights in their home were turned off, but the spell of protection she cast would buy them invisibility for a few moments.

A presence had come for them. Tobias was the one bold enough to ask: ''Eileen, who is it?''

Eileen glanced up from their hiding spot to see a man peering through the window. He was squinting and had rainfall roll off of his black robe. In his hand was a white wand and in his eyes that traced the room for Eileen or Tobias was bloodand soullessness.

''Run.'' Eileen whispered. ''Get Severus and run, Toby.''

''I'm not leaving you.''

''Don't then, and watch him kill our son.''

''Who is that, Eileen?''

The man moved from the window and knocked on their front door. Thunder timed with his knocks. The whole house shook from the power emanating from the wrathful being.

Raising her hand to clasp around the door knob was the hardest thing Eileen had ever done. For my family, she thought.

Tobias had had enough, it seemed. When Eileen started up the car again his hand shot for the glove compartment and opened it in a swift, but finally decisive moment. He had tired of being in the front seat and not saying anything to the driver. A marriage was like driving a car with a map. One drove and the other helped give directions because both of them were headed to the same destination.

It was a slender and beautiful cedar wand that his wife had. He could feel home when he touched it. It welcomed him lovingly.

Walburga's hand shot for it. Tobias let her grab it. Eileen was screaming. Grindelwald was keeping the feather-light spell still, which was commendable as these were trying circumstances.

That boy, Dudley, was probably going to need therapy. Not that Tobias himself thought he was any better. He was just tired of letting wizards control his life.

Walburga tried to pry the wand from Tobias' hand, but his vice grip was relentless. ''You will save our son from this prison and you will tell him to come visit.'' They did not see Severus. Hadn't since his graduation. ''We need to talk to that boy.''

''You had time to talk to him, yet you never reached out.'' Walburga pressed salted hands to unhealed wounds.

''I couldn't!'' Eileen snapped, finally. ''I promised him that I would never write a letter and post it via owl, that I would never reach out to the magical world, that I would never make a single potion in my life, that I would never ever speak with Abraxas Malfoy, and that were I to use magic and try to integrate myself back to the magical world he would come back! This time, he promised me, he would kill my son and make me watch. Tobias and I had barely survived with our lives. Severus hating us for hating magic was a small price to pay for his safety.''

''You have no idea what he did to us.'' Tobias was not a man to be trifled with anymore. He locked eyes with Walburga and held. ''You have no bloody clue how long it took us to rebuilt. You coming here and talking to us breaches that promise. This is why we aren't forthcoming. Not that we would be even if we could be – you're not worth our hospitality either way.''

''Brave words coming from a muggle.''

''Don't make me break your nose again, wizard. I'm the one holding the key to our salvation.''

Walburga broke eye contact first and Tobias felt mighty good about himself.

The black sizzled off and it was only blue that wrapped around Dudley's waist. The car turned heavier by the passing minute. Dudley's strained cries alerted them that they did not have much time. Not that the two magicals sitting in the back cared. Dudley was nothing more to them than a thing, a tool.

''Eileen Snape,'' Walburga addressed Eileen by her favoured name, ''were Tom Riddle still seeking to enact further vengeance on you, he would have come for you ages ago. Just by taking to me and asking about the magical world (even if it is to gain information about your son) it should have alerted him.'' Gently she let go of the cedar wand and took hold of Eileen's hand in hers. ''Doesn't that strike you as odd?''

''He's biding his time.''

''He's cut himself off from every bond he has created in 1981 when Harry Potter did him in.'' Walburga explained the dead ended connection to his Death Eaters. It would stand as fact that the less intimate deals would have fallen away much more quickly and certainly. ''You're free, Eileen. He couldn't care less about anyone from this forsaken island.''

Eileen's eyes widened with realisation. There was merit in Walburga's words.

''Except your son, of course. He was his most favoured Death Eater and then he betrayed him. Similarly how you betrayed your family by becoming a blood traitor and then betrayed Abraxas by not telling anyone he was ruining himself.''

''Blood obeys.'' Eileen recited the Prince words. Like mother like son. What she wouldn't give to see her son just one more time.

She allowed Walburga to take her wand and use it to disapparate them all from the wreckage.

Grindelwald alerted the muggle boy first by unwrapping his magic from him. Dudley tumbled backwards and held his head in his hands when he saw the car plummet with what he thought was full of people.

Said people materialized behind him with a sudden crack.

''Next stop, Cousin George.'' Walburga was back at it. She handed him the cedar wand. ''We go to Ollivander's to get me a new wand!''

''Then Azkaban?''

''And after it I can help you kill Riddle, if you like.''

''No, listen. While I do appreciate the help you think you are proffering, you are still giving me an even bigger headache by being in my presence. I am a man of my word and after Azkaban we shall go our separate ways.''

''Fair enough.'' Walburga said.

Dudley was staring at them. ''What the fuck even are you people, oi?''

''We're better than you. Thank you for the help.'' Walburga tore the cedar wand from Grindelwald's hand and cast a spell on Dudley. ''Here's some good fortune.''

With that said they disapparated away.

Dudley rose to shaky feet and wobbled over to his car. He put the seatbelt on and drove off slowly.

The rain had stopped. A shy glimpse of the sun peeked from the clouds. From the bottom of the cliff rose a caw as the sun crossed over the ash.

A phoenix rose into the sky and as it flew overhead the Snapes it let loose a phoenix feather. Eileen caught it. It was good luck to catch a phoenix feather, especially right after its rebirth.