Thanks to everyone who's reading and enjoying this, and especially those who let me know in some way, shape, or form. And Maeglin, I'm sorry to tease you again, but I *am* working on chapter 6.
ADDITIONAL WARNINGS: As this is a work in progress, it's constantly mutating, according to how much my muse has had to drink. My inborn plausibility radar refused to let me write any fluffy romantic wedding-night scenes, so there is some non-con coming up. All I can say is that it will get better, and that I have a fondness for putting Lucius in his place, so don't expect Harry to stay down for long.
_indicates underline_
3.
Flushed from his most recent triumph, Draco Malfoy sauntered into the summer flat he shared with Crabbe, Goyle, and until recently, Zabini.
"Did you see the look on his face?" he asked Crabbe, not really caring to hear the answer, but wanting to prompt another round of congratulations. "It was worth a month of courting the filthy mudblood just to see that expression. I hope someone got a pict--" Glass crunched beneath his heel, cutting him off.
Draco held up a hand, halting his oblivious friends. "Lumos."
Wandlight flooded the dark flat, illuminating the aftermath of a violent, destructive rage: overturned furniture, shattered vases and windows, slashed paintings. Draco's first thought was Zabini, but the snivelling mudblood didn't have the bollocks to trash a Malfoy's property, even if he'd had time to get back, destroy the place, and leave before Draco arrived. A muffled sniffling from one of the bedrooms confirmed his guess. Mudblood or not, Zabini was still a Slytherin, and no Slytherin would wait around for the counter-attack after extracting revenge.
"Get out," he said to Crabbe and Goyle.
"But it's after midnight," Goyle said, face more bewildered than usual. "Where're we gonna go?"
"Do I care? Go home."
"But all the portkey stations are closed," Crabbe said.
"Then walk the streets until some pervert picks you up. Just go."
"Our stuff--"
Goyle, catching Draco's mood at last, clamped a hand over Crabbe's mouth before he could get any farther. "We'll just be going then. Er, send an owl or something when you want us."
Draco flicked a hand impatiently at them, and they tromped away. Muttering to himself, he crossed the disaster that was once an upscale summer flat in Athens, and entered his bedroom. The dishevelled creature curled up on his bed burst into fresh sobs as he came in.
Draco sighed. "All right, Mother. What's he done now?"
* * * * *
Lucius kept a firm grip on the boy as they left the pedestrian muggle home, not wanting to take the chance that Harry would do something idiotic. At the end of the walk he felt the resistance of the wards; Crane let him in when they arrived, but the Wizard of the Peace and his assistant had already departed.
"Now, now, Albus. I've a legal right to take the boy where I wish." Lucius fingered the scroll, and Harry held his breath while the wards considered. The night relaxed abruptly, and Lucius smirked. Intelligent spells were sometimes a detriment. "Come along, darling. You've had a long day, and I'm sure you want to get home."
"Don't call me that. And don't touch me." Harry jerked his arm away and smoothed the arm of his grubby shirt as though Lucius' touch had soiled it further. Despite the boy's pretense of offended compliance, Lucius anticipated the sudden lunge to the right, and hooked the head of his cane in Harry's collar, pulling him up short. He dropped one solid arm over the thin, shaking shoulders, and pulled the trembling body close.
"I realize your new situation is overwhelming, my dear, however I will not tolerate any foolishness," he murmured directly into the boy's ear. Harry shuddered, and Lucius hid a smile. The arrangement had begun as a tactical exercise, but he was beginning to realize his new husband could offer far more than political gain. "Until you are eighteen, you must be in the care of an adult, and since the ministry says a married minor's welfare is the charge of his or her spouse, that would be me. That includes the decision on where you live." He tipped Harry's chin up, fascinated by the shine the waking street lamps cast on green eyes. The tears did not fall, however, and Lucius ran his thumb over the split lip. "You can't want to stay here."
Harry jerked his head away. "Better the Dursleys than following you meekly to Voldemort's feet."
"Darling, why on earth would I bring you to Voldemort? He wants to kill you, you know."
"So do you! You were there in the graveyard."
Lucius sobered; there lay the crux of his current difficulty. "Yes, I was. I was there to witness a fourteen-year-old child humiliate the Dark Lord. Ah, yes, I'd nearly forgotten -- the ring is a portkey, charmed to activate on the words 'remeo leo'."
The boy vanished mid-gasp. Lucius chuckled to the deserted muggle street, and touched one of his cloak pins. "Remeo serpens," he said, and the world melted around him.
* * * * *
No classes. No children. No noise. No semi-omniscient, loopy headmaster. No semi-omniscient, loopy Dark Lord; Voldemort was still licking his wounds after his latest showdown with the Brat-Who-Lived.
No Harry Potter.
Severus rolled his sherry glass between his fingers, staring unseeing at the pages of his book. *The* book, in fact. His most treasured possession. Bound in dragonhide, printed in Vienna in 1321 -- long before muggles had ever built a press. It contained, among others, formulae for a topical patronus potion which had saved his sanity in Azkaban, Lupin's wolfsbane, a singularly nasty permanent polyjuice, a gilding potion which lasted twenty-one years as opposed to the usual three days... only Nicholas Flamel had come closer to true alchemy.
The book represented all of his choices. Mind over heart. Knowledge over comfort. Power over family. He hated the book, yet thanked it every day for condoning his isolation. He cursed it every night for the same reason.
No papers to grade. No Gryffindors to catch rule-breaking.
Most of the summer he gladly forgot those things, but some nights, like this one, he would welcome an interruption, for he had other things he wanted to forget. Lucius Malfoy, for one. Lucius, gliding around like the shark he was, sensing blood. Lucius, dangling the book in front of Severus' nose only weeks before Christmas, when the previous Christmas he had been making love with Lily before the fire in their bedroom, when by the new year she had told him she was leaving, going back to James.
Lucius, who knew all about blood and weakness, who hissed in Severus' ear about tainted lines, about treacherous bitches only showing the nature of the filth that ran their veins.
And Severus had listened.
He downed the warm sherry, fingered his forearm, and tried to think of pleasant things, and when that failed, of things less disturbing. *Think of spring, 1977, of running into Lily outside Flourish and Blot's, of the shallow conversation of former classmates who haven't seen each other since leaving school growing warmer and more meaningful, of the indifference with which she told you she and James had split up. You know better now, don't you, Severus? You know she wore her brave Gryffindor face and let you comfort her for nearly two years... let you believe she loved you.*
The voice in his mind sounded like Lucius, and he ignored it, knowing it had led him astray before. Lucius, Lucius, Lucius, who had witnessed the awkward scene as Severus ran into Lily, James, and their four-month-old son while Christmas shopping. Lucius who had struck the very next day, enticing Severus to sign away any chance for a family of his own.
Unless he wanted Malfoy for a son-in-law, of course.
He choked a little on the sherry as he recalled the notice the Gringott's owl had brought. Why in the hell would the Department of Domestic Forms and Contracts notify Severus Snape that Lucius Malfoy was getting betrothed? Shaking off some of the alcoholic haze, Severus groped for the letter, and finally found it under the wine bottle.
*_Professor Severus Snape_, you are hereby notified that the conditions delineated in the betrothal contract dated the _11th_ day, _December_, of the year _1980_, have been met. The applicant, _Lucius Avernus Malfoy_, has affirmed his intent to honour the contract, and the ceremony will take place the _31st_ day, July, of the year _1996_. Your presence at the ceremony is optional.*
Not a notice of betrothal after all, but a notice that the conditions outlined in the contract had been met. He flipped to the back of the book, where the price of its purchase lay magically sealed onto the back cover. He released it and compared the dates and terms. They matched, which seemed to indicate Severus had a child. A sixteen-year-old child.
"Merlin's balls, that's impossible," he told his empty bedroom. "I was faithful to Lily for two years, and never so much as looked at another woman after she left. Then I signed that damned contract and abandoned my heterosexuality."
He paused, rethought that statement, tried to calculate dates, and cursed the sherry numbing his mind. It must have been the alcohol, for he kept coming to the same conclusion.
"Albus!" he shouted, then realized he hadn't initiated the fire call yet. He corrected this, and tried again. "Albus!"
Dumbledore's face appeared in the flames, wide-awake though it was after midnight. "Severus, my boy. No need to shout. I'm quite up."
"Albus..." Severus took a deep breath, hoping he was wrong, that Dumbledore would point out an obvious flaw in his theory, smile benignly, and send him off to bed with an admonishment to stop thinking about such things while drunk. "Albus, we may have a problem."
ADDITIONAL WARNINGS: As this is a work in progress, it's constantly mutating, according to how much my muse has had to drink. My inborn plausibility radar refused to let me write any fluffy romantic wedding-night scenes, so there is some non-con coming up. All I can say is that it will get better, and that I have a fondness for putting Lucius in his place, so don't expect Harry to stay down for long.
_indicates underline_
3.
Flushed from his most recent triumph, Draco Malfoy sauntered into the summer flat he shared with Crabbe, Goyle, and until recently, Zabini.
"Did you see the look on his face?" he asked Crabbe, not really caring to hear the answer, but wanting to prompt another round of congratulations. "It was worth a month of courting the filthy mudblood just to see that expression. I hope someone got a pict--" Glass crunched beneath his heel, cutting him off.
Draco held up a hand, halting his oblivious friends. "Lumos."
Wandlight flooded the dark flat, illuminating the aftermath of a violent, destructive rage: overturned furniture, shattered vases and windows, slashed paintings. Draco's first thought was Zabini, but the snivelling mudblood didn't have the bollocks to trash a Malfoy's property, even if he'd had time to get back, destroy the place, and leave before Draco arrived. A muffled sniffling from one of the bedrooms confirmed his guess. Mudblood or not, Zabini was still a Slytherin, and no Slytherin would wait around for the counter-attack after extracting revenge.
"Get out," he said to Crabbe and Goyle.
"But it's after midnight," Goyle said, face more bewildered than usual. "Where're we gonna go?"
"Do I care? Go home."
"But all the portkey stations are closed," Crabbe said.
"Then walk the streets until some pervert picks you up. Just go."
"Our stuff--"
Goyle, catching Draco's mood at last, clamped a hand over Crabbe's mouth before he could get any farther. "We'll just be going then. Er, send an owl or something when you want us."
Draco flicked a hand impatiently at them, and they tromped away. Muttering to himself, he crossed the disaster that was once an upscale summer flat in Athens, and entered his bedroom. The dishevelled creature curled up on his bed burst into fresh sobs as he came in.
Draco sighed. "All right, Mother. What's he done now?"
* * * * *
Lucius kept a firm grip on the boy as they left the pedestrian muggle home, not wanting to take the chance that Harry would do something idiotic. At the end of the walk he felt the resistance of the wards; Crane let him in when they arrived, but the Wizard of the Peace and his assistant had already departed.
"Now, now, Albus. I've a legal right to take the boy where I wish." Lucius fingered the scroll, and Harry held his breath while the wards considered. The night relaxed abruptly, and Lucius smirked. Intelligent spells were sometimes a detriment. "Come along, darling. You've had a long day, and I'm sure you want to get home."
"Don't call me that. And don't touch me." Harry jerked his arm away and smoothed the arm of his grubby shirt as though Lucius' touch had soiled it further. Despite the boy's pretense of offended compliance, Lucius anticipated the sudden lunge to the right, and hooked the head of his cane in Harry's collar, pulling him up short. He dropped one solid arm over the thin, shaking shoulders, and pulled the trembling body close.
"I realize your new situation is overwhelming, my dear, however I will not tolerate any foolishness," he murmured directly into the boy's ear. Harry shuddered, and Lucius hid a smile. The arrangement had begun as a tactical exercise, but he was beginning to realize his new husband could offer far more than political gain. "Until you are eighteen, you must be in the care of an adult, and since the ministry says a married minor's welfare is the charge of his or her spouse, that would be me. That includes the decision on where you live." He tipped Harry's chin up, fascinated by the shine the waking street lamps cast on green eyes. The tears did not fall, however, and Lucius ran his thumb over the split lip. "You can't want to stay here."
Harry jerked his head away. "Better the Dursleys than following you meekly to Voldemort's feet."
"Darling, why on earth would I bring you to Voldemort? He wants to kill you, you know."
"So do you! You were there in the graveyard."
Lucius sobered; there lay the crux of his current difficulty. "Yes, I was. I was there to witness a fourteen-year-old child humiliate the Dark Lord. Ah, yes, I'd nearly forgotten -- the ring is a portkey, charmed to activate on the words 'remeo leo'."
The boy vanished mid-gasp. Lucius chuckled to the deserted muggle street, and touched one of his cloak pins. "Remeo serpens," he said, and the world melted around him.
* * * * *
No classes. No children. No noise. No semi-omniscient, loopy headmaster. No semi-omniscient, loopy Dark Lord; Voldemort was still licking his wounds after his latest showdown with the Brat-Who-Lived.
No Harry Potter.
Severus rolled his sherry glass between his fingers, staring unseeing at the pages of his book. *The* book, in fact. His most treasured possession. Bound in dragonhide, printed in Vienna in 1321 -- long before muggles had ever built a press. It contained, among others, formulae for a topical patronus potion which had saved his sanity in Azkaban, Lupin's wolfsbane, a singularly nasty permanent polyjuice, a gilding potion which lasted twenty-one years as opposed to the usual three days... only Nicholas Flamel had come closer to true alchemy.
The book represented all of his choices. Mind over heart. Knowledge over comfort. Power over family. He hated the book, yet thanked it every day for condoning his isolation. He cursed it every night for the same reason.
No papers to grade. No Gryffindors to catch rule-breaking.
Most of the summer he gladly forgot those things, but some nights, like this one, he would welcome an interruption, for he had other things he wanted to forget. Lucius Malfoy, for one. Lucius, gliding around like the shark he was, sensing blood. Lucius, dangling the book in front of Severus' nose only weeks before Christmas, when the previous Christmas he had been making love with Lily before the fire in their bedroom, when by the new year she had told him she was leaving, going back to James.
Lucius, who knew all about blood and weakness, who hissed in Severus' ear about tainted lines, about treacherous bitches only showing the nature of the filth that ran their veins.
And Severus had listened.
He downed the warm sherry, fingered his forearm, and tried to think of pleasant things, and when that failed, of things less disturbing. *Think of spring, 1977, of running into Lily outside Flourish and Blot's, of the shallow conversation of former classmates who haven't seen each other since leaving school growing warmer and more meaningful, of the indifference with which she told you she and James had split up. You know better now, don't you, Severus? You know she wore her brave Gryffindor face and let you comfort her for nearly two years... let you believe she loved you.*
The voice in his mind sounded like Lucius, and he ignored it, knowing it had led him astray before. Lucius, Lucius, Lucius, who had witnessed the awkward scene as Severus ran into Lily, James, and their four-month-old son while Christmas shopping. Lucius who had struck the very next day, enticing Severus to sign away any chance for a family of his own.
Unless he wanted Malfoy for a son-in-law, of course.
He choked a little on the sherry as he recalled the notice the Gringott's owl had brought. Why in the hell would the Department of Domestic Forms and Contracts notify Severus Snape that Lucius Malfoy was getting betrothed? Shaking off some of the alcoholic haze, Severus groped for the letter, and finally found it under the wine bottle.
*_Professor Severus Snape_, you are hereby notified that the conditions delineated in the betrothal contract dated the _11th_ day, _December_, of the year _1980_, have been met. The applicant, _Lucius Avernus Malfoy_, has affirmed his intent to honour the contract, and the ceremony will take place the _31st_ day, July, of the year _1996_. Your presence at the ceremony is optional.*
Not a notice of betrothal after all, but a notice that the conditions outlined in the contract had been met. He flipped to the back of the book, where the price of its purchase lay magically sealed onto the back cover. He released it and compared the dates and terms. They matched, which seemed to indicate Severus had a child. A sixteen-year-old child.
"Merlin's balls, that's impossible," he told his empty bedroom. "I was faithful to Lily for two years, and never so much as looked at another woman after she left. Then I signed that damned contract and abandoned my heterosexuality."
He paused, rethought that statement, tried to calculate dates, and cursed the sherry numbing his mind. It must have been the alcohol, for he kept coming to the same conclusion.
"Albus!" he shouted, then realized he hadn't initiated the fire call yet. He corrected this, and tried again. "Albus!"
Dumbledore's face appeared in the flames, wide-awake though it was after midnight. "Severus, my boy. No need to shout. I'm quite up."
"Albus..." Severus took a deep breath, hoping he was wrong, that Dumbledore would point out an obvious flaw in his theory, smile benignly, and send him off to bed with an admonishment to stop thinking about such things while drunk. "Albus, we may have a problem."