Snape had just laid Morell's body out in the rearmost room below his parent's old house. It was less a room and more of a potato cellar. Unlike the most modern additions to the house, the cellar had mostly dirt walls and dug out places that once held his father's tools and any extra materials left over after repair jobs. Since those days, Snape had remodeled the basement, both magically and practically, to conceal another level below. He mixed and poured the concrete himself, not trusting any wizard or goblin with his secrets. And there, years ago, he kept his bullies for pets, like caged animals, until their transformations showed that they had suffered as much as they could for their cruelty in this life. The room with the strongest walls, had been reserved for a well-trained werewolf. He could've killed them all, but released them when he realized that no torment would ever give them the ability to feel remorse the way he did. They were not biologically, mentally, or sentiently capable of reaching those depths of soul. Not in any conscious way.
He stopped himself from thinking about those times, and Lily's death, and trying to keep their son alive. There was only forward. He had a dead and dying wizard on his hands, a grown son being hunted and hunting him – he could not let himself be found – and a granddaughter expressing her magic too erratically, too early. He felt it was a sign of her generational magic, and his own mother having the last say in the power she stored for him. Lucius had fucked everything up, starting with his own son.
Like everything wasn't fucked up already, he heard Lucius say in a nasal tone. He dismissed the voice in his head.
Amongst his plans, he reserved a special spot for visiting Lucius in the hospital and perhaps slowing down any chance of his recovery. He touched a vial in his pocket, knowing full well why he kept it on him.
He turned his attention to his new house guests. He deliberately omitted cleaning Morell's body with magic. Let it stink for a while. Let it wake Collin and sober him to the fact that his life was running out. He might get better answers that way.
The potato room smelled of cold black earth, moldy, shut off from the heat of the stove piped into an adjoining room. Morell wouldn't be complaining. He was in no state for Collin to catch a glimpse of. His meat was dead, but his soul could be trapped in it for a while yet, and made to answer. Spells and incantations were done in haste, to seal the spirit to the room. The recently dead needed time to adapt to their situation, so there was no point in repairing the body cosmetically. If Collin was stupid enough to try to snoop, he'd get a severe shock, that was all. Served him right. When the spells were done, he would move the body into the next room and grill the two dead men together. Morell's answers would be limited, but they would certainty scare Collin, shitless, into talking. Collin knew about medicine and healing, and transforming cells, but he didn't know shit about the other side of it. He had not graduated to those ranks in Voldemort's tightest circle. Necromancy was an art form, and he was about to be given his first lesson.
He had just finished addressing the Four Guardians governing each direction of the physical plane, and appealed to them that he had need of this man's assistance. If he made his case, they would hold Morell to his deeds until he helped to undo all the harm he was being accused of. Pages ripped in front of his vision, and candles shook in their stands. The rite took fifteen minutes and he closed the portal between his world and the dead, just as his hired man walked in.
He sensed Grail standing behind him, patiently observing something he didn't understand, but had sense enough to stay back.
"Yes?"
"You're needed. The kid's in trouble. He's got himself surrounded by muggle cops."
Snape's head lifted.
Grail didn't need to be asked for the info. "Something's wrong with the little girl. She's freaking out, screaming. He went hysterical. When his friends tried to calm him, he attacked in open daylight. Muggles saw everything. I cast a wall of deflection spells, but they rushed out of their houses. Now there's police and the Ministry."
The air was still crackling with spells when Snape rushed to the spot. By the time he arrived, in the middle of the street, he wore the illusion of a much older man, allowing his dark hair to whiten with a silvery sheen. He couldn't hide his magic, so he took extra precaution by using the spell he used to hide himself from Harry on the train. He almost didn't give a damn, he needed to know what was going on. He didn't have to be told where Ron lived. Harry's magic hung thick in the air, like smoke after fireworks. The fact that he could taste it, like vapor irritating his throat, told him of its density and the fear that must've caused Harry to react with so much force.
The area was mostly clear, with dazed residents walking around as if trying to remember something. Gauged tire tracks marred Hermione's lawn and a lavender haze clung to the property, the Ministry's attempt to neutralize the illegal magic used there. There were still undercover aurors, dressed in muggle jumpers, jeans and caps, surveying the area for any sign that people were discussing things they shouldn't have seen. Procedural, methodical spells, designed to subdue crowds, mixed like oil and water next to Harry's explosive vehemence.
Snape trailed the erratic signals of distressed magic, that Harry and the car full of individuals offering distinct signals, he had lived with and taught for seven years. He narrowed his focus, blocking out common sense perception in favor of deeper once. Panic, left wafting in their wake, told him their alarm levels would have them seeking medical help. Right there in the street, he consulted the slice of salenite used to see Harry. His magic opened its crystal matrix, magnifying his thought and intent until he saw Harry slumped in the back seat, with Draco holding the child, stroking her into a calmer state.
Long distance occlumency was not ideal under those conditions, but it got him the information he needed from Draco. The specific hospital where they were headed, and the hope that a certain doctor would have answers. He arrived at the hospital before them, and made it a point to find Avi Rankar and lure him from his office by causing a false monitor feed at the nurse's station. He already knew something of the accomplished wizard, that he was proficient in both magical and non-magical healing, through Harry's therapy. He had never spied on a session, but investigated the wizard to make sure Harry was confiding to the right person.
He had no problem hacking Avi's computer, found very little information on Iece, but considerable notes regarding Harry's stroke and his miraculous recovery. He imprinted the information into his wand's memory and dashed off to read it. Disguised and mostly invisible, he sat in the cafeteria with stolen copier paper and transferred Avi's notes to them with magic. There, while giving Harry time to get to the hospital, he caught up on the analysis of Avi like a scientist scanning the professional reports of his colleague. If any sensitive muggle suspected something amiss in the air around them, they would have to remind themselves that they were in a hybrid hospital that also ran on magic. If any wizard saw through is camouflage, they would have to pry his expansive influence from those around him.
His senses told him the exact moment of Harry's arrival. He oversaw the admittance of father and child, the questions asked of Harry's friends, and confirmed their separate rooms. He scanned Ron's mind for details, hoping to find some of the Weasley practicality that made Arthur tolerable. But Ron held a seething anger, based in fear, which emitted a bitter sensation that could even be called rancid. He was sick with worry for Harry, and about the repercussions of Harry's actions. Herminone, while equally anxious, had talked herself into a more functional state, and held herself in a place of coherent decision making. Details poured from her mind almost gracefully.
Once he saw and allowed Harry to be strapped to a bed for his own safety, Snape left him to stay close the child's treatment. He did his best to keep himself concealed and listen to what the doctor assigned to her discovered. Iece lay, all two feet of her, like a rag doll as a lady wizard took her pulse and examined her body for evidence of its illness. She was the color of infection pink, with hair too white to be natural. There was something about seeing her, a baby's thin chest, wearing her training pull-up diaper, and the burning white blotches that dimpled her chubby legs in heat marks, which confirmed a stressed circulation, that made him pause and really look at her. A baby.
He was supposed to be scanning her magically and comparing notes with the doctor's findings, but something about the way her tiny mouth hung open, in complete unconsciousness, as IV packs exploded around her, syringes melted, and digital equipment lost power, made him linger. Medical instruments began flying through the air and several nurses revealed themselves as witches when whipping out their wands was the only way to protect everyone. It made him see her for who she was. His grandchild. Her magic, going off around her, proclaimed it to the world. Even in sleep, she was not going to let him get away without acknowledging her.
If he thought he could assess her without seeing her, he was being a fool. He could tell himself that this was Lucius's child all he wanted to, as if that negated any responsibility he had towards her. Look how much she looks like Lucius, it's not his problem. He was in too deep to believe that. This was about helping Harry, but it was also about something else. Something he couldn't make up for. No matter who's face he saw when he looked at her, his own genetics called to him to recognize them and honor them.
That was him, in that miniature face, in those damp strands of pale hair, and in the helpless slack of a two year-old's body. In her blistered cheeks, round places showed like white fingerprints, as if blood could not flow back into those areas. When a nurse brushed her hair back with a medicated cloth, and tidied it in an elastic tie, he recognized his mother's hairline. He wished he hadn't. The shape of Iec's hanging forearms were scaled down shaped of his fathers, of his, in baby form. When you spend decades deciding which body parts and strengths of your parents you'd like to choose from, you're left with subtle details burned into you.
This minuscule child was almost nothing, twenty-five pounds of a pot-bellied toddler, with fat bare feet and yellow balloons on her diaper. How dare he have to see a part of himself trapped back in the indignities of childhood all over again? It was as if some part of him had been forced into the little body he saw, and made to do hard labor by reliving innocence all over again. Seeing himself in her, angered him. Until he reminded himself that none of her was him. Those were just recycled genetics. He would do what he could to help, but she was not his responsibility. As long as he kept her father safe, she would have everything she needed in life. She would never know him. It was better that way. She was safer that way.
He had never wanted children, let alone a grand one. He never wanted any part of himself to escape and risk being subjected to all the pitfalls of others controlling it, teasing it, mistreating it, and denying it in all other ways. He couldn't change the past, so he vowed to influence the present. He waited to see how long it took the doctor to realize the child's magic was causing an array of phenomena around them, moving cabinets, electrical shorts, and every attempt to inject her resulting in burst syringes. He saw the curse, but she was in no immediate danger. It hung, interlaced with her connection to life. Unlike Harry's curse, which lay superimposed over his two Wheels of Life.
Through the layers of her bio-energies, she was having a storm of imbalances, but her magic was also learning as it dodged it's own firestorm. Harry's magic had shown a similar pattern when layers were peeled back to expose the circuitry that connected him to his wheels of life. Because of their genetic symbiosis, she was actually bearing some of his trauma, his panic, and helping him to dissipate it. A child that young had no business processing that kind of thick, dense energy. But her conscious mind was so light and empty of suffering, that she was too naive to fear it the way an adult would fear it.
It occurred to him to ask himself, who was she and why had she survived? She could've died from one of many infant syndromes rather than face a life fraught with the stigmatic trauma of being conceived the way she was, having Lucius for a father, and being related to him, one of the most despised wizards to ever go down in history. She's not afraid of trouble, this little one. She's not afraid of pain. And if she didn't come here to enjoy her innocence to the fullest, what did she come for?
A voice answered: She came, because she heard him call. He cried for help, and one of us came.
He stiffened. He knew that voice. It was rare these days that he let them break free and speak out of no where. That one held a full female rasp to her whisper. Those old old witches. They were full of tricks, to get their way. But when they really wanted to speak, they broke through his defenses. They were a part of him.
He was taking too much of an interest, so he turned away. She'll be fine. As long as her wheel of life was intact, she would live. He didn't trust the use of any magic on her until he understood her symptoms better.
The voice in his head had implied too much. Did Harry and his daughter rise out of the center of his own magic, like sprouts, blossoming generation after generation, rising on top of the other from the same source of power that was decidedly matriarch in nature? He remembered deciding between his two parents, which one had more power? Even though his father was bigger and stronger, his mother had the greater mind and great magic. There had been no contest. He sided with practicality, not fashion, not trends, not politics. His power came from females, stockpiled and bestowed upon their idea of what a man should be, and he accepted it. That's as far as he allowed his thoughts to go on the matter.
He withdrew to check on Harry again. Before long, he had to hang farther back, as the Weasleys arrived and waited outside of Harry's room. He monitored the layers of both father and daughter's magic, making notes of his own when he saw them respond to the doctor's treatments. By the time Avi Rankar was called to take over the child's case, Snape had a diagram of the links and parallels between father and daughter curses and magic. He had a structure, but no answers. He avoided the Weasleys, noting only how the last two years had caused their red hair to fade quite a bit more, and their weariness more observable than their strength. No part of him was tempted to speak to them, though frustration made him wish that things were different.
He waited until Harry and Draco were in a family room together, sleeping with Iece, before scanning their magic to see where he could relieve the stresses of coping. He performed his own diagnostics, noting an anomaly in Draco's energy field.
Every so often, the tiniest spark appeared like a twinkling glitch, only to amount to nothing and fade out. Within the last two years, he had seen three of them, wondered about them, and waited as they vanished without becoming a blip on Draco's radar. They were miscarriages so unrecognized, early in their energetic stages, and unprepared for, that Draco dismissed them as illness and stress over worrying about Harry. Snape accepted that he would lose this potential child also, and that it was just as well that he never know about.
Snape was not alone in his snooping. A little presence in the room kept popping in on the boys and giving him sideways looks. A tiny elf wearing a child's track suit, grinned up at him.
Jipsy. She had introduced herself on the first night he checked on Harry, after returning his body to the train. Newly hired, she seemed overly intrigued the night he apparated to scan him and to make sure his efforts to regenerate new tissues for him, were still holding up. Her magic saw right through his disguise and camouflage.
"Sweet boy, you've become a Master." Her voice rose enthusiastically. "I wondered if I'd ever see you again."
There was nothing he could do about an elf's magical vision. He waited to see if she was a friend or foe. House elves generally minded their own business, unless the families they served were threatened. He posed no threat to the boys and he expected her to comprehend this.
She tapped her fingers together, her ears full of decorative, shiny bobs that only an elf could appreciate, rattled. "The last time I saw you, you was so tiny, your mum was putting clove balm on your chest and packing you with blankets. She put you in a drawer, to sleep close to her bed. You were stuffy with cold, months old, and your da didn't want to squash you during the night. I told her, after your first year of life, you'd hardly ever run a temperature again. Wizard blood would win over. She kicked me out that night, but gave me a sweet hug before letting me go. I was never allowed close to her family after that. She said she had to do things on her own. You've got that same spirit about you."
He said nothing at first. He realized this was meant to engage him as well as demonstrate the elf's discretion. He looked at her, determined not to entangle himself in curiosity. So she'd known his mother. So what. If she was forbidden to come near his family, then his mother must've had a very good reason. This elf was a lot older than one might suspect. She wore real clothes and spoke as if she could not be reprimanded. He wasn't worried about what she could say to others, he knew that she couldn't. But he stood guard on what she could say to him. He had so many secrecy and confidential charms in effect around the truth, that anyone who knew it for what it was, backed down from speaking it instinctively. Their throats swelled as they approached the subject. An antihistamine trigger, having to do with subconscious alert to betrayal, constricted their breathing and they thought better of it.
He was resigned to let her stare, google-eyed, and commit to not speaking to her. With his most imposing glare, he told her so. Just because she'd known his family, didn't mean he owed her a conversation.
She blurted, "He will find you. Children know to whom they belong. You belong to him just as much as he belongs to you."
He turned his focus from the sleeping boys to her. She merely smiled, delighted to get his goat.
"I am taking good care of Madam Eileen's possessions. She forbade me in life, but in death, she left them in my care."
He half wanted to believe it, but dismissed it as romance.
"Just take care of them and leave me out of it," his stinging whisper insisted. He turned, spinning himself into an apparation that took him back to Avi's office. In the A.M. hours, he used his salenite to peer over the doctor's shoulder at his notes and diagnostics. He used occlumency to pry out what wasn't being written down. He followed the mediwizard's logic to the very doorstep of realization and understood what her changing eye colors represented. So it wasn't enough that Harry's daughter was conceived with that curse hanging over all of them. She would be directly affected by it for the rest of her life if he didn't find a way to remove it.
He apparated back to his parent's home to wrestle the cure and counter spells from Collin and Morell.