A/N: Once again, a warning that there are descriptions of historical events in this chapter that could upset some readers. This chapter describes explicitly the warrior culture and history of the Wallachians, and it is extremely unpleasant reading. Detailed descriptions of torture are included. It does have some relevance to Snape and Voldemort's past however and the relationship between their histories, so it is relevant to the plot.

Chapter Sixteen

"Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this people" Jeremiah 16:5

It was hard for Hermione to keep going back down to the secret room under the Manor but there was so much information there about the Death Eaters and the Snape family history that she found herself there every now and again when she could screw up her courage to face the huge, snarling hound and oppressive tunnel.

She had still not decided what to do about the room, whether or not to call in Padma's team to help her dismantle the place and destroy the dangerous items or just try and seal it up herself and hope no-one ever found it. It was a small hope, she knew. There would always be people who would be drawn to resources like these for the wrong reasons. For the wizarding world's safety and the good of the Snape line, it should be destroyed. She was reluctant to do it without Severus' knowledge however. Although the Manor was now technically as much her's as Severus', she didn't feel that way about it. Severus had a connection with the place going back centuries via blood. She had just married into the line.

"I'll have to tell him myself one day," Hermione said quietly to Hermatica and Severus-the-first in their small frame on the lab bench.

They looked at her with concern. "Perhaps it would be for the best," Severus-the-first agreed reluctantly.

Hermione nodded and sighed. "I just don't know when would be the right time," she murmured.

She got up and took the book of family history off the shelves again. "I got as far as reading about the Moors and Scythians last time," she commented to her companions in the frame. "I'd like to read more."

"The legends surrounding Count Dracula and his animagus as a magical hound*** (known as a shuk** in the British Isles),"

"A shuk?" Hermione repeated outloud. "Harry's animagus if he ever used it would be a shuk. Did I mention that his animagus was found in seventh year to be a black hound?" she asked the pair.

"No dear," Hermatica said with interest, being quite familiar with all of Hermione's and Severus' friends by then.

"That means that not only does Harry have Voldemort's twin wand, he also has the same animagus as Voldemort's ancestor," she observed. "There are some odd connections between those two. Almost like they're opposite poles of the same magnet or something."

"Very likely," Severus-the-first said. Hermione kept reading,

"are quite true and are based on the real events of when Vlad Tepes, a Prince of Wallachia in the fifteenth century, came to Britian in the eighteenth century in his vampire form to settle here. Unlike the legend, Vlad was not hunted down and destroyed by Englishmen but began a new life and family there. Eventually, he returned to his native Romania a century later but one branch of his family remained and became part of the wizarding community. Tom Riddle, later Lord Voldemort, came from that branch."

"Well, that explains fucking everything," Hermione snorted. "Do you want to hear about Vlad Tepes, Voldemort's ancestor?" she asked them. They nodded. "I'll just read you extracts," Hermione added.

**" Wallachia is a provence of Romania bordered to the north by Transylvania and Moldavia, to the east by the Black Sea and to the south by Bulgaria.

*"There were large stakes on which they could see the impaled bodies of men, women, and children, about twenty thousand of them. There were babies clinging to their mothers on the stakes, and birds had made nests in their breasts. Impalement was an especially sadistic means of execution, as victims would suffer excruciating pain for hours, even days, until death came. It appears that Vlad was determined at times to administer it in ways that would ensure the longest possible period of suffering for the victim.

"He had some of his people buried naked up to the navel and had them shot at. He also had some roasted and flayed. He had a large pot made and boards with holes fastened over it and had people's heads shoved through there and imprisoned them in this. And he had the pot filled with water and a big fire made under the pot and thus let the people cry out pitiably until they were boiled quite to death.

Hermione sighed and shook her head with a grim expression but kept reading aloud,

"About three hundred gypsies came into his country. Then he selected the best three of them and had them roasted; these the others had to eat.

"The poor and crippled arrived in the city and they were ushered into a great hall where a fabulous feast was prepared for them. When Dracula himself made an appearance. 'What else do you desire? Do you want to be without cares, lacking nothing in this world,' asked the prince. When they responded positively Dracula ordered the hall boarded up and set on fire."

Severus-the-first made a derisive noise and Hermione glanced up briefly to see a sneer of disgust on his hawkish face. His dark eyes looked haunted however, so similar in expression to her own Severus whenever he was deeply disturbed. She bent over the book again and continued,

"Some Italian ambassadors were sent to him. He asked them why they did not take their caps off, too. They said it was their custom, and they did not even remove them for the Emperor. Dracula said, 'I wish to reinforce this for you.' He immediately had their caps nailed firmly on their heads so that their caps would not fall off and their custom would remain."

"Some diplomat!" Severus-the-first spat. "No wonder he was never able to establish truly successful alliances and spent his life hunted like a dog by his enemies."

**** "Dracula came through the forest with his servants and had all the Wallachians of both sexes tracked down, and he was able to bring so many together that he let them get piled up in a bunch and he cut them up like cabbage with swords, sabers and knives; as for their chaplain and the others whom he did not kill there, he led them back home and had them impaled. And he had the village completely burned up with their goods and it is said that there were more than 30,000 men."

"A famous woodcut shows Vlad having a meal while impaled victims are dying around him. As he eats, his henchmen are hacking off limbs of other victims right next to his table. He also roasted the children of mothers and they had to eat the children themselves."

"It almost makes Voldemort sound like he was falling down on the job, doesn't it?" Hermione said, her loathing evident in her voice. "Not even he lives up to the madness of his ancestor."

Hermatica looked deeply shocked. "Bad blood. It's all bad blood," Hermatica murmured.

"You know what else is interesting?" Hermione mused, propping her sharp chin in one hand. "Voldemort's ancestors were the bitter enemies of the Ottomans; the Ottomans defeated Wallachia devastatingly during Vlad's own lifetime and rule. The Ottomans have ancestors in common with the Scythians via their common descent from the Mongols. Historically speaking, Severus and Voldemort's ancestors are enemies - not allies at all."

Severus-the-first nodded consideringly. "You're right. I wonder if Voldemort knows enough about his own family history to know that," he speculated.

"I doubt it. Voldemort wouldn't have made allies through the Death Eaters with the Snape clan if he had known. Makes you wonder though, whether the Snapes were ever destined to be allies of Voldemort's for very long. It goes against the blood," she postulated.

"I wonder if Vlad Tepes is still alive in Romania," Severus-the-first reflected.

"Why are you interested in all this family history, and how the blood lines and ancestry works Hermione?" Hermatica asked curiously. "How will it help you?"

Hermione frowned. How did she explain it? "Have you ever heard of iniquity?" she asked.

They looked at her blankly. "No," they chorused.

"Sin?" she asked hopefully.

"Isn't that a Christian concept?" Severus-the-first asked, not having a high opinion of Christians as they were merely unwashed barbarians in Europe when he knew of them. He also had no real understanding of their beliefs either through sheer lack of interest.

"Yes. There are 3 types of sin; transgressions, mortal and iniquity," Hermione began lecturing. Severus-the-first and Hermatica looked frankly confused. "Transgressions are minor sins that are bad but won't land you in hell. Mortal sins are the really bad ones that will land you in hell - things like murder and adultery. Iniquity is sin carried down the generations in your family. You know, *'the sins of the father are visited upon the child' and so forth," Hermione continued.

"You can go to hell for adultery?" Severus-the-first pondered. "There must be a heck of a lot of people frying."

"I'm just telling you the definitions, okay? This is going somewhere, have patience," Hermione said irritably. "Now it's iniquity I'm concerned with. If sin is carried down generations in families, I'm surprised that the Snape line has survived as long as it has," she said.

"There have been plenty of decent Snapes," Severus-the-first bristled. "Just not recently."

"Er, hello! What about the Scythian ancestors with their skull cups and scalp serviettes? What about the number of people slaughtered when the Moors conquered Andalucia? What about the damn Death Eaters and that 30 year old blood on the wall?" Hermione said, pointing to the object lesson in the room.

"So, what are you saying? The Snape line is doomed?" Hermatica asked with concern.

"No, because the curse of iniquity can be broken," Hermione replied.

"How?" Severus-the-first asked with a frown.

"Through blood," Hermione replied simply. That was something that Severus- the-first and Hermatica understood all too well. The knowledge of the magical properties of blood was known in all cultures and all civilizations.

"Whose blood?" Severus-the-first asked stiffly. "Do we have to sacrifice someone? Because I don't approve of that kind of magic."

"No! It's already been done. He's already died but his blood can still break the curse," Hermione explained.

"For just anyone?" he asked skeptically.

"Yep," Hermione said cheerfully.

"How does it work?" he asked curiously.

"You just use his name. It's a Word of Great Power," Hermione explained. That was something else Hermatica and Severus-the-first understood. It was a basic piece of magical knowledge. Using the correct name of something gave that person enormous power over that thing. Certain names held their own power and were used in spells and charms.

"He must have been a great and powerful magician," Severus-the-first said speculatively. "In order for that one blood sacrifice and his name to have so much authority."

Hermione smiled slowly. "The greatest magician ever," she replied.

Suddenly Hermione heard low snarling behind her, as though from an enormous animal and she spun around in her seat in fright.



* Exodus 34:7 - "Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."

A/N - Okay, do not give me a hard time about my theology! I can't remember where I learnt about the 3 types of sin and the Catholic Encyclopedia catagorises it differently, so it must have been my Protestant/Pentecostal relations I heard it from. Anyway, it's really just an interesting plot devise. ;)

** "One of the most impressive phantoms and one of the best known in Norfolk is Old Shuk (from the Anglo-Saxon, Scucca or Sceocca, the early native word for Satan), a demon dog as big as a fair-sized calf that pads along noiselessly under the shadow of the hedgerows tracking the steps of lonely wayfarers and terrifying them with the wicked glare of his yellow eyes. To meet him means death within the year to the unhappy beholder." A J Wentworth. Sourced from a thread on www.Ezboard.com. Also check out http://michael.spiralwave.co.uk/legends/shuk.htm

*** See Bram Stoker's original version of "Dracula" when the Count lands at Whitby in the form of a huge, black hound.

**** Information on Vlad Tepes taken from several internet sites dealing with the history of Wallachia and the life of Vlad Tepes.