A/N: Well, after a bit of writer's block, here it is at last. I give special thanks to Mary Grace, Carson, and Ariel because I lifted their Greek names for characters in the story, albeit without their knowledge. Also, this chapter is dedicated to Severa, who has just graduated, and Threeoranges, who will be married this Saturday (and, so as not to be slighting, also to Normandie M, for finishing her Pompey essay at last). CONGRATULATIONS, MY GALS!
Chapter Six
Being unable to move her husband, the woman then said: "Since I cannot convince you not to expose it, then, if a child has to be seen exposed, do this: I too have borne a child, but I bore it dead. Take this one and put it out, but the child of the daughter of Astyages let us raise as if it were our own; this way, you won't be caught disobeying our masters, and we will not have plotted badly. For the dead child will have royal burial, and the living will not lose his life." –Herodotus, Book 1.112.2-3
It was a few weeks later that Snape was in the Slytherin common room, discussing advanced potions with several of the seventh years, that Sylvia entered breezily, wrapped cheerily in a scarf to ward off the chill in the air.
"Looking for me?" he asked, assuming that she would be.
"No, actually. Draco Malfoy," she said rather absentmindedly, walking towards the staircase.
"He just walked out a moment ago, I think," Snape replied.
"Oh. I must find him, then," she said, walking towards the door, still obviously deep in thought.
"Sylvia." He said it forcefully, and grabbed her arm. She turned to look at him, and it was as if she was seeing him for the first time.
"Severus," she responded. "I'm sorry."
"What on earth is wrong?" he asked, concerned.
"Nothing, Sevy. I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to."
Something about her secretive tone, and the way she averted her eyes from him, made him snap. "I am so damn TIRED of this!" he said, and the Slytherins turned around in surprise, hearing their Head of House raise his voice. It wasn't like him, to be passionate. Usually his anger was cold and bitter, quiet and deadly.
"Tired of what?" she asked, also unused to him becoming angry in this fashion.
"No more!" he said, leading her out of the common room and down the hall to his quarters.
"No more what?" she asked dumbly.
"Secret keeping!" he snapped, as he sat her down on his bed. "I'm sick of it, Sylvia. I won't stand for it anymore. If Voldemort can get the truth out of me, then I'll soon be dead anyway, and then you'll never die, so why does it matter? Just tell me!"
"Are you sure you want to know?" she asked, crossing her legs.
"Absolutely."
"Very well," she replied, unwinding her scarf. "You may want to make yourself comfortable. This is going to take a while."
Taking her advice, he sat down beside her on the bed, wanting to know what she had to say.
"Let me start decades and decades ago. When I was with Tom, I took a barrenness potion once a month to ensure that I would not get pregnant. I did not like the idea of giving him a child, even though it was what he wanted. But eventually he figured it out." She shivered a little bit at the thought, and Snape reached his hand out to touch her shoulder in a way he hoped was comforting.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"No, no. I will," she said, taking a deep breath. "He gave me an antidote, and I may have conceived that very night. It turns out, as you may remember, that Narcissa Malfoy was pregnant at the same time. We became very close, sharing pregnancy stories and cravings and such."
"I do remember," he said. When he had been initiated into the Death Eaters, Sylvia had been several months pregnant, as had Narcissa.
"By some coincidence—or perhaps, something more than coincidence—we went into labor on the same night. There had been a meeting that night, and calling in any kind of medical help was out of the question. It would've revealed the Death Eaters. Lucius had some medical training, and Sophie was there. She's assisted me in several of my births. She really is an expert by now."
Snape considered asking Sylvia just how many children she had, but then thought better of it. He didn't really want to know.
"Narcissa delivered an hour or two before I did, and her child, a girl, died only half an hour later of complications. Both she and Lucius were stricken—I know you can't imagine them that way, but they were. My boy was born soon afterwards, and I realized what I had to do. It took some convincing on my part, but what Tom does not realize is that my magic is much more powerful than his can ever dream of being. They took my child and I theirs. I dressed her up and presented her to Tom. I am glad he did not examine the child fully, because he would've known." She managed a small smile. "He never deluded himself into thinking that he was my One."
"Sylvia, then—" he began, baffled by what she was saying, but she continued.
"We buried the child, and I left that night, looking for anyone who would take me in. I remembered Remus Lupin, and I sought him out. I was very ill, and I spent many months recovering. After that, we left for America. Albus knows the truth of the matter, but no one else does save Sophie and the Malfoys. I have always said the child was stillborn."
"Draco…Malfoy…is…your…son?" Snape asked rather dumbly.
She stared down at her hands. "Yes," she replied simply.
"But…how? But…?" He was very confused.
"After it happened, the Malfoys and I promised that we would not speak to one another in public. For all everyone knew, we were strangers. It seemed better that way."
Severus remembered the first day he had met Sylvia, sitting outside Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlor, when Lucius had walked up.
"You seem familiar," he had said to Sylvia, whose eyes had avowed no knowledge of the man. "Have we met?"
"We might have," she had replied. How had they hidden it so well?
"But Sylvia," he said, shaking his thoughts back into the present, and remembering what he had wanted to ask. "Draco looks so much like his mother and father."
Sylvia nodded. "Yes, it seems so coincidental, doesn't it? Do you know about Tom's family, Sevy?"
"I must admit that I never inquired," he replied. The idea of exchanging small talk with Voldemort was amusing, to say the very least.
"His mother, a lovely witch named Calliope, had a brother and a sister, both younger than she. Her brother Koios married a Villefort—you know, the ancient wizarding family—and her sister Lampetia a Malfoy, a name which I'm sure is familiar to you. Koios and his wife, Flos, had a child named Narcissa, and the Malfoys, as you know, had a son, Lucius. The two were married. You see, they're cousins, and they are also cousins with—"
"Voldemort," Snape said, putting the pieces together.
"I guess when he began his ascent to power, they decided it would be more advantageous to keep things within the family then to join forces with some Muggle-loving fool. A pity. They're both so talented. So, you see, Draco is also related to them, more distantly."
"And you came to the commons tonight to tell him about his birth."
"Oh no, Sevy. He already knows about that. I told him at the beginning of term. Don't you remember?"
"Now I do," he replied, recalling the scene. Draco obviously hadn't taken it very well. "If not that, then what did you come for?"
"The Natalis spell that Salazar put on me, Sevy. It tells me when my heirs are in trouble. It's stronger with my direct children, of course. Draco is, in a way, my first direct child since Swithulf."
"Swithulf? Salazar's child?" Snape half-guessed. "I've never heard much of him."
"No, I imagine you wouldn't have. He's mostly kept out of the history books, save for those ridiculous stories of his wizard training. Regardless, when Draco is upset or hurt, I feel the pain in my scar, less strong then when Tom is summoning me, of course, as his power is much stronger than Draco's."
"And Mr. Malfoy is upset?" Snape asked.
"I think so, yes. One thing that I have learned is that those born under the Natalis spell have faint versions of the original scar-locator; in my case, the triangle. Wherever he is, he feels the pain there, too. But Sevy, I need to go find him. He's my own son."
"Yes," Snape said, although he wasn't sure he believed it yet.
"I'm sorry," she said, as she left him.
"That's all right," he murmured as she left. "Everyone's more important than your One."
***
There was a secret room off the main section of the library. Sylvia had found it once in the 16th century when she had gone there to "study" (as she liked to think of it) with a seventh-year at the time. Isolated and normally utterly deserted, it was home to a magnificent set of illuminated texts from the Middle Ages. No one, not even Madam Pince, knew about it now. No one but her. Or so she had thought.
But that was where she found Draco, curled up in one of the windowsills, reading from an ancient parchment.
"Draco?" she asked, and he turned. The look in his eyes was extremely vulnerable.
"Oh…Dr. Oliver," he said, becoming sure of himself. The mask had slipped but for an instant. "I didn't know anyone else knew about this place. I found it my second year, when I was looking for the—"
"Chamber of Secrets," she finished for him, and he seemed surprised. "I know a lot about you, Draco. What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, Dr. Oliver," he said formally, and with a trace of annoyance. "I had no idea that I had been followed up here, or I would have chosen another place. You're probably here on some plan of Potter and his friends, aren't you? I've seen you with them; you're positively chummy."
"Draco, I'm practically married to your Head of House. Why would I be here for Gryffindor purposes?" She was amused at the thought.
He was confused for a moment. Apparently he hadn't known about her relationship with Snape. "You weren't a Slytherin," he replied promptly.
"I never formally attended school here," she shot back. "However, when I first arrived, Rowena took me under her wing, and taught me formal magic….even gave me a wand…" Her tone was wistful, and caught up in memories.
"Rowena? So they're true? The stories my father used to tell me about the Three?" Draco asked.
"What stories were those?"
"You know, that the Three were immortal, and they had to find their special One, and that they could control nature, and that they lost their immortality with a girl child and all that. I thought it was a myth."
"I can certainly see why," she replied. "It seems quite ridiculous, doesn't it? Scarcely to be believed. Perhaps it oughtn't to be. Well, I suppose if everything's all right, Draco, then I'll leave you." She turned to go.
"No, wait!" he said.
"Yes?"
"My father never…he never failed to mention that the other children of the Three…the boys…that they lived longer than most mortals. They had some special powers. I didn't think it was very important to the story. I couldn't figure out why he would add that." He looked down at the manuscript intently, trying to avoid her eyes.
"I think you know why, Draco," she said gently.
"It can't be true," he answered. "I don't believe it. You're not my mother more than McGonagall is."
"That's what's worrying you, isn't it?" she intuited.
"No, of course not," Draco said too quickly. "That's rubbish. You're full of it, Dr. Oliver."
"Draco…" It was all she said, and she pulled down her robe to show him her triangle-scar, red and irritated.
"No," he breathed, and slowly pulled down his robe and sweater to reveal a fainter, less pronounced triangle. "How did you know?"
"The Natalis spell. Salazar put it on me. All my descendants have it as well, only weaker."
"If you're my mother, Dr. Oliver…does that mean that I can affect Nature?" Draco asked eagerly, obviously more excited at the idea of new, unknown powers than the implications of her motherhood.
"You could maybe manage a light rain," she said, smiling. "And please call me Sylvia, at least."
"Yeah, okay. So…my father…"
"Do you not know who your father is?" she replied, her smile vanishing. "I call him Tom. You might know him better as Lord Voldemort."
"No way! That's so cool! Dad—I mean, my Dad…I mean…--said that I should go with him to the next meeting. He says that the Dark Lord wants to meet me, that I would be useful. Inside source at Hogwarts, and all that. Just like you, right?"
"Draco, no!" she gasped, actually darting forward as if to make sure he was safe, to protect him. "You must not…you must never meet him face to face."
"What? Why not? All the other Slytherins would be so impressed."
"The scar that we have—he has it too. He is also my descendant. And that means that he would know you as his, instantly. I'm just glad he hasn't been near enough to you to figure it out yet, and that your…I mean, Lucius and Narcissa haven't been weak enough to admit it to him. If he found out, it would mean that he knew we had lied. He can't kill me, Draco, but he can kill your parents. Lucius and Narcissa would be dead already if he knew."
Draco's face went ashen. "But Dad…"
"You must tell him that you cannot go! Explain it to him! If he doesn't listen to you, then let me tell him. If he knows about you, Draco…all my plans are forfeit." Her face was intensely troubled.
"Plans?" Draco asked, dropping the manuscript, an illumination of Swithulf Slytherin's training as a wizard, onto the floor in his excitement. "What plans?" He was intrigued at the idea of some sort of secret operation that he could perform under cover of night, and then brag about in the morning.
Instead of saying anything, Sylvia gazed intently at the manuscript for a moment or two, then finally murmured, "You'll know soon enough, Draco. Far too soon."
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Trouble in paradise for Sevy and Sylvia? Could be, could be. In the next chapter, we will explore the fact that their relationship hasn't had much exploration recently, and find out why the hell I made Sylvia the mother of such an awful brat as Draco Malfoy. Well, maybe. Oh yeah, and when I corrected the chapters last time, I was wrong. I know. It's weird. Just know that this chapter is right. And since I plagiarized this whole plotline from Herodotus, I quoted him at the beginning. Now I am tired and hungry. I shall eat, and go to bed. Please perform the following three Rs: Read! Review! Rap in a ghetto fashion!