Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything you can recognise from any books or TV series or movies. I do however take liberties with the plots or mentions provided by JKR or other writers. The only profit I'm getting out of it is improving my English.
Title: Secrets & Keepers – Entropy
Rating/Warnings: R/M [AU; Manipulative Dumbledore (therefore not Dumbledore friendly); profanity; canon typical violence; frank discussion of past child abuse (Harry but not only) and of past child abuse of sexual nature (not Harry); not very detailed descriptions of torture (not Harry); Black family feels; identity crisis; pureblood politics; good Slytherins]
Characters and pairings: Harry Potter, Sirius Black, Regulus Black, Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, Bathsheda Babbling. As well as Hermione Granger, Arcturus Black, Larry Lawrence (OC) and Josephine Turner (OC). The rest of characters will appear as the story progresses.
All adults are more or less paternal towards Harry or grandfatherly towards Hermione as well as generally friendly or at the very least civil towards each other once they sort out their differences.
References to past and present relationship of sexual nature between Snape and Babbling. Occasional mentions of one sided Sirius/James, not one sided Sirius/OFC (the woman of many names). Contains mentions of Remus/Tonks, eventual allusions to Larry/Josephine and background Arcturus/Melania. No Harry or Hermione pairings because they have a lot on their plates and won't have time for teenage nonsenses for a longer while (at the very least through PoA timeline).
Spoilers: All seven books with occasional, brief references to ground work for HP & CC main plot as well as Secrets & Keepers – Collision Course and Secrets & Keepers – Supernova.
Summary: Harry & Hermione learn that as weird as everything become in the aftermath of learning devastating news is that the life actually goes on. There's a Dark Lord to destroy, a manipulative Headmaster to overthrow, family bonds and new friendships to establish and old ones to maintain. Direct sequel to S&K - Collision Course and S&K - Supernova.
Word count: About 5300.
Author's note: This story will make very little sense to anyone who hadn't read both Secrets & Keepers – Collision Course and Secrets & Keepers – Supernova. The reading order doesn't matter as both exist in their own private bubbles that don't affect the other. Chronologically Supernova starts way earlier than Collision Course but both of them conclude on the same day. If someone prefers writing order then Collision Course was written prior to Supernova. This story will contain spoilers to both and will liberally include and reference characters and information learned in prior instalments. Because I'm a generous soul who wants to give some of the readers that read Collision Course but hadn't read Supernova time to catch up chapter one will only contain the crowd from Collision Course.
Posted on Tuesdays, starting from 15th December 2020.
Beta read by Regnbuen (Nitraz).
Dedicated to Nitraz and everyone who came so far to learn how the story ends.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
~Margaret Meade
We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
~Tom Stoppard
Secrets & Keepers – Entropy
Chapter one: Burying The Dead
Severus Snape, 8th August 1993, 12 Grimmauld Place, London.
If someone had told him yesterday that tomorrow he would be having a breakfast with Sirius Black on remotely civil terms he would have hexed their arses off. Yet, there he was, seated at the long table in the kitchen sampling a multitude of cheeses, hams and three kinds of eggs. Black himself was seated at the high end of the table, flanked by his undead brother and Potter. The boy himself looked pale and morose, and was picking at the food, which Black had been steadily dropping on his plate.
Not that Severus blamed him. It was a miracle that after learning that he was the Dark Lord's Horcrux he didn't have a full mental break down. And as loath as Severus was to admit that it was thanks to Black and his assurance that he wouldn't rest until he would find a way to fix it. Potter didn't appear to be completely convinced but at the very least wasn't crying and even managed to put some food in his mouth.
The rest of the merry bunch of idiots, Bathsheda included, seated themselves between Black the Undead and Potter and busied themselves with tucking in their own breakfasts. Severus, not wanting to stand out too much seated himself by Bathsheda, not that he was in the mood for that.
She lied to him, granted mostly by omission but it didn't change the fact. Not that she owed him anything. No, their mutual score of who was owed more to whom was still skewed in her favour and most likely would always remain as such. Not that he didn't plan to air his grievances with her, he did, but he planned to do so in private.
The breakfast itself was a quiet affair with everyone busied with their own plates and cups, disturbed only by requests to pass something from one end of the table to the other.
Severus, busy with his own meal observed them. Black Senior for all of the heaping various stuff on his plate actually ate very little, he was quite keen to smuggle his tomatoes and sausages to Potter who after some time had passed, picked up on what Black was doing and started dropping his eggs and mushrooms on Black's plate.
Lupin and Tonks, seated next to Potter were busy with sampling everything that was on the table, Lupin predominantly was more interested in meat while Tonks was devouring one pancake after another with the most ridiculous toppings imaginable.
Bathsheda was dreadfully boring with her own eggs on toasts with fried mushrooms on the side and tomato salad, occasionally she nibbled on a slice of cheese but like usual she was staying off pork. Not that she really subscribed to eating Kosher but she had her own unchanged breakfast routines and she wasn't deviating from them.
Black Junior on the other hand, like Severus, had been sampling everything, and unlike his brother or Potter, was actually eating what he had on his plate. Between bites he was looking at both with unhidden concern, sometimes interrupted by a slight grimace when either of them played with their food for too long.
Breakfast passed in remote peace, but the tension slowly started rising as the plates grew emptier. Regardless of the initial agreement to work together to eradicating both the Dark Lord and scheming, sherbet consuming, twinkling old coot, they did have a lot to talk about to be completely on the same page. And it was imperative that they were.
"So who's going to start?" asked Tonks curiously once Black Junior distributed fresh cups of tea after cleaning the table from the breakfast's clutter.
"How about the Walking Dead?" suggested Severus.
"Is it really that important?" asked Regulus with a grimace.
"Let me think," said Severus with a grimace. "You somehow managed to convince her," he gestured towards Bathsheda "to drag herself here, which by extension means that you dragged the rest of us here too."
"That hadn't exactly been my plan," replied Regulus grimly. "My plan was to get in and out of my house to fetch necessary stuff but they," he gestured at Lupin and Tonks, "had a different idea."
"To be fair I would have been sitting on my arse at home with her," said Lupin as he gestured towards Tonks, "hiding in the bushes nearby when she wasn't using my shower if it wasn't for a certain article in the Daily Prophet which claimed that Harry Potter was missing."
"To be fair if it wasn't for the same article I would be still dying from boredom on a conference in Beijing," added Severus.
"And I would have a rewarding ending of my vacation in the company of nymphomaniacs if the idiot over there," said Bathsheda as she gestured towards Severus, "didn't decide to risk multicontinental apparation which nearly bloody killed him, if it wasn't for that article."
"You seriously apparated from Beijing to England?" asked Regulus curiously as he leaned over to look at Severus.
"Georgia," muttered Severus with a grimace.
"How badly did he fucke himself up?" asked Regulus as he turned towards Bathsheda.
"Pretty badly," replied Bathsheda with a shrug. "Why are you asking?"
"No reason," replied Regulus quickly, too quickly for Severus's liking and for some reason it made both Black senior and Potter snort in almost perfect unison.
"Done something worse than that?" asked Severus pointedly.
"Yeah, apparated through the Dark Lord's anti-apparation wards and put himself out of commission for two years," replied Black. "With ruptured magical core that took its sweet time in recovering."
"What for?" asked Lupin sceptically.
Instead answering right away Regulus pulled the locket out of his pocket and placed it on the table. Only once it was laying on the table, ominously just there, he asked, "Does anyone require further explanation on the subject?"
"How did you know what it was?" asked Severus pensively.
"Upbringing," replied Regulus. "And having one of the best equipped libraries on the subject of the Dark Arts in the family. Didn't figure it out until I examined the cup which his evilness handed to Bella."
"Wait, you're saying that he has more than that one?" asked Lupin sceptically before he looked at Potter.
"Four that I know, one of which was destroyed quite recently," replied Regulus grimly.
"Possibly five," muttered Black with a slight grimace. "At the very least until it can be examined I'm disinclined to rule it out. And if it is one then we're fucked."
"What exactly do you have in mind?" asked Regulus pensively.
"Gryffindor's sword," replied Black grimly.
Regulus groaned, loudly and Severus found himself echoing him. He never got a chance to touch the sword but he had seen it and read about its magical properties. Black was right, if the Dark Lord managed to turn the sword into a Horcrux they were fucked, as the sword was rumoured to be indestructible.
"Do you have any evidence to support that notion?" Severus found himself asking.
"A very intense hunt for Gryffindor families in the months leading to the Dark Lord's fall," replied Black grimly. "Started roughly a couple of days after the rat became James and Lily's secret keeper and continued well into the fall, maybe a couple weeks before Halloween."
"Wait," said Lupin. "How long precisely had Peter been their Secret Keeper?" he asked.
"The exact number of days aren't going to change what he did," replied Black with a snort. "But if it helps you sleep at night," he added with a grimace. "We performed the Fidelius Charm on 17th July 1981, the very moment the moon had risen. Lily wanted it done on the full moon to give it additional strength, not that it helped in the end."
"But Voldemort hadn't gotten to them for over three months," muttered Lupin.
"Well, I'm inclined to give the rat a couple of days to agonise over the idea of passing the news to Vader," replied Black sourly.
"Then there's the Dark Lord himself," added Regulus. "No one really knows the limit of his knowledge and what he actually planned to do once he got there. There are numbers of dark rituals that need to be prepared for a specific number of days or done on specific days within the year."
"Like say Samhain," interjected Bathsheda pensively.
"Hence lulling the Potters into false sense of security that everything was in order," added Regulus. "And if he really managed to get his hands on Gryffindor's Sword and planned to turn it into a Horcrux…"
"Then he wouldn't have gotten a more meaningful date or death than the death of the toddler prophesised to vanquish him," muttered Potter. "Except that wasn't exactly what happened. Does anyone know what possibly could have happened?" he asked as he looked around the room.
"It really depends from the lengths that your mother was willing to go through to ensure your survival," said Bathsheda slowly. "And Evans," she paused, "Evans was smart, resourceful and because she was a Muggleborn she lacked the constrains which any pure- or half-blood witch would have in her place. There are a number of protective rituals that can only be performed by a mother, smaller than that of those that can be performed on specific days in the year but…" she hesitated.
"I've seen the Potter library," Black interjected. "There was nothing in there that would have helped her. Fleamont and Euphemia really abhorred dark magic…"
"And blood magic for a number of decades had been considered as dark," added Regulus.
It really was, which was why Severus was greatly put out and worried when he discovered the thievery of the books that he himself had… well, not exactly stolen, more like he forgot to return them once Regulus died.
"Didn't you once borrow Magicae Sanguinis from me?" asked Regulus pensively as he turned towards Severus.
Severus almost snorted. Of course the fucker would remember that.
"Yes," he admitted calmly.
"And did you return it?" Regulus pressed further.
"I intended to," replied Severus. "But then I got the door slammed in my face and decided that if anyone needed it then they would be able to locate me."
"And did they?" asked Black pointedly.
"No," replied Severus with a snort. "But the book disappeared sometime between the late autumn of 1980 and autumn of 1981."
"I assume that you didn't keep it on view," commented Regulus.
"Of course not," replied Severus with a snort. "Not that any other mark bearers than you made it further than the sitting room."
"The usual hiding spot then?" asked Regulus.
Severus grunted. The loose floorboard in his room had been inconspicuous enough to keep his father from pilfering through his meagre savings. It was located precisely under the bed and required some gymnastic to get to it. Over the years it hosted many things, early on his wand and more valuable books, later on trinkets and mementos, money that he didn't want his father to know about. The book had ended there too eventually, and when he discovered that it went missing he was perplexed who would have dared to take it. He didn't ward it, he contemplated it for a little while but he knew enough about human nature to know that wards, unless they had been obscured by an experienced warder hardly ever served their purpose. They were more like an invite for curious fucks, like say Bathsheda, to examine what precisely was hidden behind them.
When the book originally went missing he simply assumed that Arcturus Black, the paranoid fuck, had some spell placed on it that summoned the book to the library.
"We had one here, didn't we?" asked Black pensively.
"We did," agreed Regulus. "But Grandpa removed it and a couple of others one day shortly after you disappeared. Heard him and father arguing over it. He was quite adamant about it and threatened to leave father with only romance novels and school textbooks if he didn't comply, which he did but he wasn't very happy about it."
"Because they were banned, weren't they?" asked Bathsheda curiously.
"Not all of them," replied Regulus with a grimace. "But a couple of them were on the list of regulated stuff and some of them were only meant for the eyes of family members. To quote Grandpa: what's on the GBL list of private collections should stay with the private collection. The GBL list referred to the library in the Black Manor in Derbyshire and that's where the collection was supposed to reside."
"So it came from there," stated Black.
"I took it from there, yes," agreed Regulus. "But until we check it out I can't say whether or not it indeed went missing or was returned to the library. It's hard to tell what Grandpa did after I was gone and father died. I didn't exactly have a chance to examine the library here, and for all that I know once there was no one here, Grandpa might have carried out his threat and left mother behind with only romance novels and school textbooks."
"Something worth checking out later," muttered Black. "Did Lily know about that hiding spot?" he asked as he looked at Severus.
"She was the one who discovered it," admitted Severus grudgingly. "Petunia," he barely kept himself from spitting out her name, "got hysterical over some harmless mischief which Lily brought from Hogwarts after we returned from our first year, and to console her Mrs Evans had banned all magical stuff from the house for the summer. She allowed Lily to keep the wand and books in the house but urged Lily to not work on anything when Petunia was in the room."
"And knowing Petunia, after that statement she turned into Lily's shadow for the rest of the summer," commented Black.
"You knew her that well?" asked Severus sarcastically.
"No, but I had a nosy sibling," said Black pointedly.
"Well, in retrospect I was a bit right," snorted Regulus.
"But not on all fronts," replied Black. "She discovered it and then what? Stacked her contraband at your place?"
"For that summer and in spite of my protests," agreed Severus, feeling a bit uneasy about the easiness with talking about Lily to someone other than Dumbledore, he didn't even talk that much about her with Bathsheda.
But then again, these people, well, most of these people knew him at school and knew about his friendship with Lily. And they knew Lily.
"And then what?" asked Regulus curiously. "The contraband survived?"
"Of course it did, you met my father, the only time he bent for anything in the house was to tie his shoes or look for a bottle," replied Severus with a snort. "Then old Mrs Evans passed away and Petunia got her own room so Lily could keep her stuff in her own," he added slowly.
"Another place worth checking," muttered Regulus. "What's the address?" he asked as he turned towards Severus.
"Doesn't really matter," replied Severus with a grimace. "Petunia got rid of it after the Evans' passed away."
"And she swindled Lily of her portion of inheritance too," commented Black with a snort. "Claimed that she would pay her back eventually. I'm not even sure what she needed it for. Either new house or that walrus's company."
"Another thing worth checking," said Regulus grimly.
"Where the money went?" asked Potter sceptically. "What for?"
"Because if she owed Lily money and didn't pay her off for her portion of the inheritance it would give us some legal rope to tug on," replied Regulus. "As her child you inherit everything that was owed to her."
"I wouldn't bother," replied Potter sourly.
"Why not? If it's yours, it's yours," said Bathsheda curiously.
"Because if you demand that money I'm sure that you will receive in return a detailed list of how much raising me cost them, and my own money would be on that cost, greatly exceeding whatever Mum was owed by Aunt Petunia," replied Potter and he snorted. "I would leave it if I were you," he added after a moment as he looked from one Black to the other.
The look that passed through Black's face heavily implied that he disagreed with the boy but after a moment, his face returned to the earlier more neutral one.
"There's another thing which we need to discuss quite urgently," said Bathsheda, in her calm, educating complete dunderheads tone. "And it's Harry's return to Hogwarts."
Secrets & Keepers – Entropy
Sirius Black, 8th August 1993, 12 Grimmauld Place, London.
"Over my dead body," flew out of his mouth as soon as Bathsheda stated it.
"That could be easily arranged," muttered Snape and weirdly that statement lacked the heat that Sirius expected to hear.
He really had to be greatly disturbed by what he learned to not show even a hint of disgust or contempt. It seemed as if the comment was a knee-jerk reaction to Sirius's statement, a force of habit rather than something that he said consciously.
"Over Dumbledore's dead body then," supplied Regulus with a snort. "I'm with Sirius on this one. As long as Dumbledore remains the Headmaster, the safest place for Harry is anywhere else."
"Agreed," said Bathsheda calmly. "But you're forgetting that you're dead," she added as she turned to Regulus and then as she turned to Sirius, "you're a wanted man and that Harry had been officially reported as missing."
"And right now Dumbledore is convinced that he's missing due to usual teenage drama but the longer he stays missing the more likely it is that a manhunt for him will start," stated Snape. "Which considering the current circumstances should be the very last thing you should want. You know, with the planned manhunt for the Dark Lord's soul pieces and all."
Point taken, Sirius agreed grudgingly, to himself rather than out loud. It was bad enough that he was a wanted man and he would remain us such until they caught Pettigrew. But it didn't change the fact that Harry wasn't safe at Hogwarts, not that he really wanted to let him out of his sight, not so soon after….
"What if there was a way to smuggle you into the castle?" offered Bathsheda pensively.
"Dumbledore and Fudge are convinced that Black is heading for Hogwarts and you want to hide him at Hogwarts?" asked Snape incredulously.
Bathsheda turned towards him and quipped, "No safer place than in the dragon's nest."
"Hogwarts has wards," pointed out Remus. "Wards which Dumbledore controls."
His comment made Bathsheda turn towards him and the looked that passed through her face spoke of something that at the same time caused a small hope to bloom in Sirius's chest and raised his shackles.
"Yes, Dumbledore does control the wards," said Bathsheda calmly before she looked at Snape pointedly.
And while she was partly turned away from him he couldn't exactly see her face but he could see Snape's. His mouth didn't move but his eyes had flashed briefly from cold and dispassionate to burning.
"Are you sure?" asked Snape eventually, with definitely heard scepticism in his voice.
"Granted pulling it off will require some time and a lot of work, and someone," she looked back at Sirius, "will have to cough up a couple of stones. But I can safely smuggle both of you into the castle and keep you there unnoticed. Would that satisfy your desire for Harry's safety?" she asked pointedly.
"Not unless you will be able to find a way to smuggle me into Gryffindor tower and keep me there at all times," replied Sirius stiffly.
He abhorred the idea of Harry ever stepping a foot in the castle as long as Dumbledore remained at the helm of the school, or breathing really.
The look that passed through Bathsheda's face at his statement was so achingly familiar to Mirzam's that his heart skipped a bit and his throat squeezed slightly. Mirzam would have risen to the challenge and Bathsheda…
"Challenge accepted," she replied with a wide smile. "Thank you, Sirius."
"You already have a plan, don't you?" asked Sirius with a sigh.
"I know that for Gryffindors planning ahead takes all the fun out of life," said Bathsheda simply and her comment had earned her a snort from Harry and Remus, "but I'm not a Gryffindor."
"Everybody that went to school with you knows that," commented Snape with a small snort. "Lupin will be heading to Hogwarts eventually and Ms Tonks can slip in and out, mostly unnoticed if her presence there would be required. But how exactly are you planning to harbour a fugitive and walking undead in the castle?"
"With great caution obviously," replied Bathsheda simply and Sirius snorted. "As things stand, my good for nothing brother decided to kick the bucket."
"Last year," interjected Snape with a grimace before he took a sip of his tea.
"But his wife was alive last year and they had an eleven year old son," continued Bathsheda.
"Didn't he die alone?" offered Snape with a slight frown.
"You presume that Dumbledore will check it out?" Bathsheda asked pointedly. "But even if he did that arse died as he lived, as a Muggle and I can attribute to him whatever I fucking please."
"And Dumbledore won't ask your father to confirm that?" offered Sirius.
"He could do that, but first he would have to find the Resurrection Stone, which isn't going to happen anytime soon, if at all. He isn't that good with multitasking," replied Bathsheda with a snort.
"My condolences," offered Sirius.
Bathsheda shrugged and grimaced.
"But you have other brothers and ones that have children," pointed out Sirius.
Bathsheda grimaced even harder.
"Bathy," said Sirius softly. "What happened?"
"Celeste Dimhallow that's what happened," she muttered grimly. "Nevermind, let's move on. We have more pressing matters to attend than the state of the Babbling family."
"Considering that you're planning to make him," said Sirius as he gestured at Regulus, "a part of the Babbling family I think that we should talk about it. And what about Sheba? Won't she have anything against gaining a surprise cousin?" he asked pointedly.
With his gaze concentrated on Bathsheda he barely managed to catch Snape flinching at the mention of Bathsheba's name. But Bathsheda's face didn't change from the schooled, dispassionate mask that radiated with 'we're not discussing that now'.
"Bathy?" he pressed again. "What happened?"
The room fell silent and the only thing that could be heard was the soft breaths of their occupants.
"They're dead Sirius," said Remus finally, in a soft calm voice.
"How?" slipped out of Sirius's mouth on an exhale.
"Celeste Dimhallow," answered Snape quietly. "Daughter of Clemente Dimhallow. You might not remember him as from what I gathered his entourage had outnumbered you and hexed you with pretty nasty stuff but while you were passing out you managed to…"
"Hex a copper flowerbox from one of the windowsill that had fallen on his head," finished Sirius softly. "Heavy weight, high fall, hit him right on the head. According to official reports he was dead before I completely passed out," he finished. "And his daughter? What did she had to do with it? Bathy?" he turned towards her.
"According to the public?" Bathsheda muttered finally. "She was just another victim of what had happened. An innocent, young witch caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. A life lost at the beginning of a new road in her life, the engagement to Benjamin Babbling and all the usual jazz."
"But that wasn't what happened," said Sirius with calmness in his voice that he didn't feel.
"No," replied Bathsheda with a shake of her head. "When Christmas Eve had been turning into Christmas she cast Fiendfyre that devoured the mansion and everyone that at the time was inside it."
"Your parents," whispered Sirius.
She nodded.
"Your brothers with their families," he added in the same small whisper.
She nodded slowly.
"Your daughter," he said it so softly that he could barely hear himself.
Her nod was barely a slight jerk of her head.
"All of them except me and David," she said finally. "I was at the flat, had a Mastery exam coming that would have allowed me to get away from…" she shook her head. "David found me there and dragged me back to the house. But it was already too late," she paused. "The wards collapsed, inwards, to protect the village, they locked everybody in and us out. I heard them, I heard them all and there was nothing that I could do to stop it," she paused again and a tear rolled slowly down her cheek. "I couldn't even protect my daughter. She was in my room, behind the wards that kept the fire out but not the smoke. She kept banging on the window and crying for me but…"
"She asphyxiated," finished Regulus softly as he gently placed his hand on her arm. "And you watched it."
She nodded slowly.
"I'm sorry," whispered Sirius softly, not controlling the need to reach out and hug her but he couldn't.
"It wasn't your fault," she said softly. "You aren't responsible for other people's choices, Sirius. Only for your own and as much as I wanted to pin that on you during the worst of it, you couldn't have predicted that she would be just as bad as her father. If anyone's to blame then it's Benjamin for bringing that cunt home and proposing to her after barely three months of knowing her."
"And David, did he share your opinion?" asked Sirius quietly.
"David didn't share anything with me other than the lunch which the Auror guarding our quarters had attempted to force into us and screamed out accusation that his wife and children's deaths were my fault," replied Bathsheda grimly. "He vacated his room during the night and was out of the country before the day fully ended, leaving me to deal with the aftermath of his outburst."
"On your birthday," whispered Sirius. "After you just lost your daughter, you parents, your brothers and your nephews and nieces."
"What a fucking jerk," muttered Regulus.
"He'd always been one," said Bathsheda with a soft snort. "Just like Ben was always after a new cunt," she grimaced. "Aaron really was the best of them, and even he had his faults."
Sirius knew, probably better than she had, that out of all three of the Babbling brothers, Aaron was the one that at the very least attempted to make an effort of looking after their younger sister, and his niece.
Bathsheba was dead. His throat squeezed a bit tighter at that thought. She died as a child hardly older than… She turned three in September of 1981. Like with Harry a couple months earlier he missed the birthday party but remembered to send a gift. How old was she…
"It was Christmas of 1981," he heard coming from a fog and weirdly when he concentrated on the voice it sounded like Snape's.
"Weren't you in Azkaban during Christmas of 1981?" asked Remus, with a hint of scepticism.
"I was let out just before the new term had started," replied Snape sourly. "Found her at Hogwarts instead of Graham and looking for blood."
"Yours?" asked Regulus sceptically. "Why?"
The looks he received in return spoke volumes as did another. A hint of sneer in the curled thin lips, narrowed eyes. At Hogwarts Mirzam feelings towards Snape were pretty ambivalent. She didn't hate him but she didn't harbour any sentiments towards him, other than keeping Sirius on occasion from taking out his own frustration with the man. But after they graduated something had changed and whenever Snape's name happened to be mentioned at the very least she sneered at the mention of his name.
Mirzam was the observant one. Not that he was the blind idiot that tripped over clues. He was good at what he did, with and without Mirzam, but out of the two of them Mirzam was the one more likely to pick subtle hints from body language faster than he did, and she had a better photographic memory than him.
Little Bathsheba looked like a miniature version of her mother with her dark-brown curls and small aquiline nose. But her eyes, her eyes while still brown under certain light were far darker than that of her mother.
He closed his eyes summoning to the forefront of his mind the face of his goddaughter. Then he opened them again and looked Snape dead in the eyes.
"Because he fathered her," whispered Sirius softly. "He fathered her and she was dead and he had to suffer with her."
"Wasn't…" started Regulus.
"Shut up, if you know what's best for you, kindly shut up," said Bathsheda sternly and looked from Regulus to Sirius.
"If it makes you happy," muttered Sirius with slight sourness.
"It doesn't make me unhappy and I had eleven years to sort that out. So kindly mind your own business or I will start asking what you and my sister had been up to," said Bathsheda pointedly.
"Unlike what we've heard before nothing that would cause permanent damage to a delicate teenage psyche," replied Sirius stiffly.
"She was pregnant when she died for crying out loud," snorted Bathsheda.
"Mirzam?" whispered Remus. "She was pregnant when she died?" he asked as he looked at Sirius.
Remus didn't know. It was the only thing about which they didn't talk about when he broke down on Harry's first birthday and Remus attempted to do his best to put him back together. He had been tempted to say it, to admit it out loud but found himself choking on the words. Admitting Harry's existence, for as short as it had been, would make his passing final, not to mention the mess it would cause if the word got out. And it would have gotten out because Sirius had to plead with him until he was blue in the face to convince Remus to not mention anything about Mirzam to James and Lily.
"You never said," said Remus softly.
"Because I knew that you would," admitted Sirius with a heavy sigh. "To Lily if not James and it was bad enough that she suspected that something wasn't right. They had enough on their plate to also worry about me."
"Of course she worried about you, you moron," scoffed Bathsheda. "You were the closest person she had for a brother and actually a better friends than Potter ever were. She pelted me with questions about what was wrong, bloody empath, and if I didn't oath like I stupidly had…" she huffed and shook her head. "Whatever happens going forward you talk, all of you," she added sternly as she looked around the room.
"You aren't honestly suggesting…" started Snape.
"That your boyfriend and I should hash out our differences and grievances while braiding each other's hair," finished Sirius.
"The amount of alcohol that event would have required would be monstrous," muttered Remus with a soft snort.
"I prefer hexing," said Sirius, nearly over the echoing sentiment from Snape.
"That's settled," commented Dora. "But now we have another problem. How to turn Harry from officially missing without letting him out and without Dumbledore getting himself involved."
TBC
Next: Sirius has a heart to heart with Harry. Hermione and Arcturus discuss the events that occurred in the last chapter of Supernova. Severus questions Bathsheda and some of hers decissions.
