Disclaimer: The same as the previous chapters.
Chapter 35
Both Hermione and Neville were allowed to see the standard Gringott's envelope. It was his wife who had pointed out the obvious. Shocked and thrilled at the discovery, she looked back straight at him then at her former head of the house and the Minister," The word 'friend is written by someone else. Even the ink colour seems darker." Severus did curl the edge of his lips, which did not escape Neville Longbottom. The snake slayer was quite worried about his friend's safety and Snape was infamous for his foul temper. On one hand, he knew it was best to rely on the man's words but he had to see for himself, how Hermione was going. Ron's death had hit her hard. And then Harry's hastily planned exile had left her without any support. The Weasley's were themselves fighting to keep it together. Neville had been to Grimmauld's Place twice before his Gran's funeral and both the times before leaving Granger had hugged him tight and had held on to him for a long time.
Watching how respectful the husband and the wife were being to each other he was relieved. He had turned his eyes and let them hover over the box and the parchments sitting over the coffee table and heaving a sigh.
Things with Pansy were new and he couldn't give it a definition. He had cooked meals, she had watched his magic-induced knife chop vegetables. She didn't ask much, he didn't consciously try to engage the other into a conversation. After sharing a quiet meal, he had followed her into the bedroom, where she had mutely asked him to join her. He hadn't complained. It was clear, she needed to keep touching something and it was the same for him. He never knew when his eyes had closed on their own. But it was lovely to wake out with her snuggled into his arms and her lips puckered and eyebrows scrunched out like a thoughtful little girl.
He had informed her, he had to be away for a while and had gestured at his own little library if she wanted it read for a while. But his pixie wife had the gale to smirk and reply sassily," Mr. Longbottom the world can go and shove their head in footlong snow thinking you are a klutz, but I know how wild you are, I have first-hand experience. Go, I won't try to singe my hand again. I will perhaps sleep it in."
Pansy was to be blamed for bringing out his wild side. His deepest fantasies, which he had managed to keep under the wraps for so long were nudging at his senses these days. He recalled how he had felt his blood boil, as he had grabbed at her two ankles while she lay down unsuspecting his sudden move. She had squealed as she came crashing against his chest, and had tried to wriggle her way out of his strong arms. But he had just continued to hold her tight. Breathing over her pinkish ears, watching the lobe turn redder, he had huskily whispered," I dare you not to dream of your husband while I am gone, Mrs. Longbottom."
When he had turned to close the door of the bedroom shut, he was thrilled to watch her sitting on his bed, blushing, her eye dark with desire and a trembling smile etched on his bright face. He did not know if this was friendship, companionship, lust. Perhaps it was just the beginning of accepting the thrill attached to co-existing.
Biting the inside of his cheek, he had looked around to find, Professor McGonagall had been watching him all this while with a knowing smile on her face. He had ducked his head and had brought it up only when Professor Snape began speaking once again. The man began while staring at the minister and so seemed both were reminiscing that night together," Minerva had to be taken away to St. Mungo's and the others were doing their best at handling the wounded, helping either in the hospital wing or aiding the aurors through the rubble extracting bodies of the fallen."
"With Remus gone, I was certain that the aurors would come for me. But this castle once again came to my aid. It helped me hide in both these quarters and also in the Headmaster suite and office. Before they could take me in for questioning, I had gone over both Lupin's warning and Longbottom's statements and was quite certain, we had to be prepared and strike first rather than picking up remnants of dead bodies. Kingsley and I both had a way of communicating with each other and very soon he was able to make time for me. We had nearly done our talking and Kingsley had just left, when the floo had activated and Lupin's worried face was visible in the green flumes," licking his lips he pulled at his collar discreet feeling the chain and the sets of pendants, one of which was gifted by late Ms.Gabrielle Delacour.
On the night of the end of Battle of Hogwarts
Snape had just sat back on his couch right next to the fireplace in the headmaster's office and had closed his tired eyes shut when the fireplace had chimed, and Lupin had urgently asked to be allowed in. He had been up his feet when both Lupin and Andromeda Tonks stepped in. The old woman had never looked so frightened in her life. She had scurried towards him and had grabbed hold of his arms. Jerking them hard, she pleaded," You need to do something, you need to, I don't know who else can. We are in grave danger, trust me. I heard he has got the Veela girl. Is that true?! You need to save her before he has a child with her!" It had not escaped Snape's eyes that behind her Remus had brought along with him a box of journals and parchments and had gently placed it over the side table.
Asking his personal elf Pin, to bring some tea, he had invited both Andromeda and Lupin to sit down. The woman had brought out her handkerchief and was wiping her tears, but she still looked quite shaken. Lupin placed his hand over her shoulder and asked her gently," Dora, why don't you just tell him everything, one after the other, and I can assure you Severus is quite an attentive listener."
Nodding, she looked back at the pale man and sniffed," I will tell you everything," pointing at the box on the side table, she said," those belong to a distant relative of mine, Helga Flammore. I believe she was a squib born in the Black family and might have got married to some naturalist at one point of her life, who in turn was, I suppose related to Ted, at least there are some muggle reports to verify that...But that is beyond the point. The point is both Remus and Fenrir are related."
Minerva, Hermione, and Neville had turned at Snape sharply, but it was the Scottish woman who had spoken out," What! How I would have known! At least, Albus…"
Putting his palm up, Snape had gestured them to be quiet, and informed," It is difficult to say what Albus knew of this matter. Now, according to Helga Flammore's journal, magic has been around us and in us, for a long time. Kingsley would agree with me here, that in some of the ancient places of the world even today the first traces of magical signatures can be tapped. And Magical beings have evolved over centuries much in the same way, the Muggle Naturalist, Charles Darwin had surmised in his 'Theory of Evolution'. Of course, for the magical beings, the evolution where at times spell induced or curse induced, at things due to genetic mutation over a long period of time. And of course, habitat, profession, and climate did play a part in it."
"Helga had lived many years in a suburb close to the borders of France and Germany. And from there, I presume, she might have heard of the muggle folktales and thought there could be more to those stories that the muggle Grimm Brothers that compiled together. Though many of those were around for a long time alive through bedtime stories, court tales narrated by Jest and courtly fools as they were called back then, and children's stories. The point to be noted here...the ones that can be traced as the source stories were too gruesome to just be a muggle. They were in fact magical, to say the least. We will not go in detail of all that, we will instead focus on the single tale of "Red Riding hood" that had to do with the Black Forest itself." he had turned his gaze at Hermione and had arched his brow, drawling his next words he had informed the group," Madam Snape had been busy while we were fending off Greyback. She can at least tell us the muggle version of it, in crisp language."
His timing had been perfect because Hermione's eyes had gone wide in shock, but she managed not to stammer. Gulping down some water from one of the five glassed Pin had thoughtfully brought in for everyone before the meeting had started, she cleared her throat, tapping her fingers over Snape's personal copy of Grimm Brothers' tales, she started speaking.
"I will begin by telling you all, the version of the story I grew up listening to. My Granny, then my Mum would read them out to me since I can remember." Snape could feel a sense of guilt and remorse pass through her and was quite intrigued by it. He decided to keep that thought stored away. When the time was ideal, he would ask her about it for sure.
*"Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a village near the forest. Whenever she went out, the little girl wore a red riding cloak, so everyone in the village called her Little Red Riding Hood.
One morning, Little Red Riding Hood asked her mother if she could go to visit her grandmother as it had been awhile since they'd seen each other.
"That's a good idea," her mother said. So they packed a nice basket for Little Red Riding Hood to take to her grandmother.
When the basket was ready, the little girl put on her red cloak and kissed her mother goodbye.
"Remember, go straight to Grandma's house," her mother cautioned. "Don't dawdle along the way and please don't talk to strangers! The woods are dangerous."
"Don't worry, mommy," said Little Red Riding Hood, "I'll be careful."
But when Little Red Riding Hood noticed some lovely flowers in the woods, she forgot her promise to her mother. She picked a few, watched the butterflies flit about for awhile, listened to the frogs croaking and then picked a few more.
Little Red Riding Hood was enjoying the warm summer day so much, that she didn't notice a dark shadow approaching out of the forest behind her...
Suddenly, the wolf appeared beside her.
"What are you doing out here, little girl?" the wolf asked in a voice as friendly as he could muster.
"I'm on my way to see my Grandma who lives through the forest, near the brook," Little Red Riding Hood replied.
Then she realized how late she was and quickly excused herself, rushing down the path to her Grandma's house.
The wolf, in the meantime, took a shortcut...
The wolf, a little out of breath from running, arrived at Grandma's and knocked lightly at the door.
"Oh thank goodness dear! Come in, come in! I was worried sick that something had happened to you in the forest," said Grandma thinking that the knock was her granddaughter.
The wolf let himself in. Poor Granny did not have time to say another word, before the wolf gobbled her up!
The wolf let out a satisfied burp, and then poked through Granny's wardrobe to find a nightgown that he liked. He added a frilly sleeping cap, and for good measure, dabbed some of Granny's perfume behind his pointy ears.
A few minutes later, Red Riding Hood knocked on the door. The wolf jumped into bed and pulled the covers over his nose. "Who is it?" he called in a cackly voice.
"It's me, Little Red Riding Hood."
"Oh how lovely! Do come in, my dear," croaked the wolf.
When Little Red Riding Hood entered the little cottage, she could scarcely recognize her Grandmother.
"Grandmother! Your voice sounds so odd. Is something the matter?" she asked.
"Oh, I just have touch of a cold," squeaked the wolf adding a cough at the end to prove the point.
"But Grandmother! What big ears you have," said Little Red Riding Hood as she edged closer to the bed.
"The better to hear you with, my dear," replied the wolf.
"But Grandmother! What big eyes you have," said Little Red Riding Hood.
"The better to see you with, my dear," replied the wolf.
"But Grandmother! What big teeth you have," said Little Red Riding Hood her voice quivering slightly.
"The better to eat you with, my dear," roared the wolf and he leapt out of the bed and began to chase the little girl.
Almost too late, Little Red Riding Hood realized that the person in the bed was not her Grandmother, but a hungry wolf.
She ran across the room and through the door, shouting, "Help! Wolf!" as loudly as she could.
A woodsman who was chopping logs nearby heard her cry and ran towards the cottage as fast as he could.
He grabbed the wolf and made him spit out the poor Grandmother who was a bit frazzled by the whole experience, but still in one piece."Oh Grandma, I was so scared!" sobbed Little Red Riding Hood, "I'll never speak to strangers or dawdle in the forest again."
"There, there, child. You've learned an important lesson. Thank goodness you shouted loud enough for this kind woodsman to hear you!"
The woodsman knocked out the wolf and carried him deep into the forest where he wouldn't bother people any longer.
Little Red Riding Hood and her Grandmother had a nice lunch and a long chat."*
After a bit to catch her breath, she added for the benefit of all, "This was in a prose poem format written by Leanne Guenther. But," showing the book up to everyone, she gestured," this here has the oldest version. Though I would warn you the story has been told in almost all the European languages and parallels have been drawn with ancient Greek and Roman fables. Le Petit Chaperon Rouge by Charles Perrault, though," Snape had interrupted her to add," We must not forget that the premise of this story was a forest and geographically France, Germany, and Switzerland shared the borders of the Black Forest."
Resuming again, Hermione informed," Well, the Perrault French version was actually quite sinister.
*The story had as its subject an "attractive, well-bred young lady", a village girl of the country being deceived into giving a wolf she encountered the information he needed to find her grandmother's house successfully and eat the old woman while at the same time avoiding being noticed by woodcutters working in the nearby forest. Then he proceeded to lay a trap for Red Riding Hood. Little Red Riding Hood ends up being asked to climb into the bed before being eaten by the wolf, where the story ends. The wolf emerges the victor of the encounter and there is no happy ending."*
"And of course there is the famous Grimm Brother's version. The main format of the story remained all the same. *The earlier parts of the tale agree so closely with Perrault's variant that it is almost certainly the source of the tale. However, they modified the ending; this version had the little girl and her grandmother saved by a huntsman who was after the wolf's skin; this ending is identical to that in the tale "The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids", which appears to be the source. The second part featured the girl and her grandmother trapping and killing another wolf, this time anticipating his moves based on their experience with the previous one. The girl did not leave the path when the wolf spoke to her, her grandmother locked the door to keep it out, and when the wolf lurked, the grandmother had Little Red Riding Hood put a trough under the chimney and fill it with water that sausages had been cooked in; the smell lured the wolf down, and it drowned.
The Brothers further revised the story in later editions and it reached the above-mentioned final and better-known version in the 1857 edition of their work. It is notably tamer than the older stories which contained darker themes.*
Minerva and Kingsley had both sat quietly but Neville Longbottom had mumbled astounded by the whole of it," I just thought muggles were good storytellers and even those tales of witch burning at the stakes were hilarious, serious it was so easy of hide your wand and just disillusion yourself, and transfigure some twigs into remains of burnt bones just to fool them. But you are saying Muggles had their own versions of bedtime stories that actually started off as Magical tales," when Snape had arched his brow and looked at the young man pointedly, he had sat up straighter, exclaiming," What! These things happened for real? Like there was really a girl, woman, witch by the silly name 'Red Riding Hood'?!"
Snape had just smirked back slyly," On the contrary Mr. Longbottom, 'Red Riding Hood' was a veela".
Anything written in between the *-* is either from Wikipedia or by Leanne Guenther. I am just borrowing it. As for the Grimm Brothers tale, I just build up my fic around it. Like I always maintain, I am responsible for my AU and rest are written and claimed by others far more superior to me.