***
. Not much Anna in the last one, sorry about that, I just needed to get Harry in there because it wouldn't be like Remus and Sirius to ignore them completely…
***
"And so you see, electricity is vital in the Muggle World in order to give them their vital inexpensive source of light heat, and to power many of their inventions to cater for their everyday needs, a toaster for example, which turns bread crisp, which can be done by simply holding it near a fire, or by a charm which the wizarding world is more familiar with…"
"Why? I thought they had other means, gas for example?" Hermione had her hand in the air, waving eagerly to get her question asked. "I know people who have gas heating and things."
"Yes, that is also possible, but more in previous years than now. Since the invention of electricity at the end of the nineteenth century, innovation has come a long way, further perhaps than wizarding inventions over the same period of time."
Remus peered through the window of the second floor Muggle Studies classroom in the west wing. Anna was taking a lesson on Electricity and its uses very well, not giving the students any reason to make them believe she was not of wizarding birth. But then, no potential death eater contacts took Muggle Studies; it was considered unseemly for "proper" wizarding families of pureblood birth to ever consider the Muggle world as anything other than a hindrance. Take the Malfoys for example. They would never let their son anywhere near a toaster on pains of death. Would they even know a toaster if it came up and danced in front of them… he doubted it.
He had a book he wanted to show Anna when the lesson finished, he had been given it by Draezyc, wrapped up in brown paper with his name elegantly written on the top. He had not yet unwrapped it, as the note accompanying it had told him not to until he had Anna with him as it would prove useful for them both. This had intrigued him. What could Draezyc possibly own that the Hogwarts Library did not possess? And why had she not given it to him personally? So many questions, so few answers.
There had been no visible repercussions of the Sumpservius murder yet. Remus didn't want to chance it to say it would be ignored. Voldemort had a tendency not to ignore things like this.
A small third year, Jonathan Tetzel was scurrying down the corridor, his arms loaded with books, Remus had to slink back against the wall to avoid a collision at the top of the stairs. He smiled to himself, how many times had he done that? In a mad rush from the library to get to the common room before Dinner with an armload of books. The bell signifying the end of the lesson ran out magically through the halls. Once again Remus found himself flat against the wall as the contents of the Muggle Studies Class emptied itself in a flood of students eager to get to dinner early.
"Anna?" Remus stuck his head round the door where Anna was sitting on a chair behind the desk, vaguely scribbling something own on a piece of parchment which she hastily scrumpled up as Remus walked in.
"Hello. Have a nice time?"
"Was talking to Harry, then went for a wander around the portraits, funny how many recognise me as little Remus, the polite little Gryffindor student…" Remus nodded, placing the book on the desk. "We have a present it seems."
"What is it? I didn't know Draezyc was in a gift offering mood."
"Well it's a book, but the subject of this has yet to be defined, I was thinking perhaps an evening to peruse the contents in my office this evening?"
"That sounds wonderful." Anna nodded, smiling up at Remus. "Oh Remus, you've dropped your quill."
"My quill!" Remus bent down to snatch it off the floor… He hastily put it in his pocket.
"Why was there like… half a top to your quill?"
"Half a top?" Remus feigned ignorance. "Dunno, probably fell off the bird like that."
A dog barked in the doorway.
"Padfoot, hello." Anna smiled patting the dog's head. "Have you got deformed quills too?"
Sirius transformed, closing the door behind him. "My lady! I could take that in a very offensive and perverted way… but I won't because I'll get thwapped on the head by this irate werewolf."
"Sorry." Anna blushed, trying not to look at the dirty grin Sirius had thrown her.
"No I don't, please don't tell me you've got a sugar quill fetish too…" Sirius groaned.
"A what fetish…"
"Don't say a word." Remus pointed at Sirius. "Not a word."
"Not saying a word… oh sorry already over the limit." He smiled angelically.
"Sugar quills, they're like quills but made of sugar so you can suck them in class and look like you're just thinking…" Remus explained, trying not to think whether he was blushing as bad as he thought he was.
"Suck being the operative word here…" Sirius ducked under a piece of paper that went flying his way from Remus.
"You are in one sick mood today… what on earth is wrong with you?" Remus asked Sirius exasperatedly.
"He's going through a second puberty or something isn't he." Anna added, enjoying the look of outrage on Sirius' face.
"I bloody well am not." Sirius said indignantly. "I was just trying to point out that your dear friend and mine has an unhealthy fetish for Sugar Quills."
"Oh." Anna tried to hide her smile.
"Well at least it isn't a leather fetish." Remus snapped at Sirius who wiggled his eyebrows wickedly. "You should see Eddie in biking gear… wooooooooow."
"Too much information… go on…. Go find some tree to cock your leg on."
"Charming." Sirius muttered before transforming with a faint pop and bounding out of the door his tail held jauntily high.
The school had quickly got used to Padfoot roaming the corridors with Harry. Officially he was Dumbledore's pet dog, who was free to roam the school at will, but took a certain liking of Harry, so followed him around quite a bit. His official job was to sniff out any rats that might be infesting the corridors, which of course Remus knew, had an alternative meaning.
"So do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Have a…a… sugar quill fetish?"
"I wouldn't go as far as to call it a fetish… as such." Remus smiled weakly. "More of a childhood addiction that has been particularly difficult to get rid of."
"I can't believe we're discussing people's fetishes…" Anna giggled.
"I don't believe you've asked me mine yet." A silky voice announced from the corridor.
"Severus!" Remus raised a shocked eyebrow.
He's being friendly… how odd.
"Go on then, what is yours?"
Snape struck a thoughtful pose, then smirked. "My wife… and meringue. Well baked meringue." He returned to his normal sneer. "But that's not my reason for being here."
I thought there was something up.
"That book, that Draezyc gave you… She er… borrowed it from Voldemort's personal collection, I suggest you read it before he notices it's absence." He folded his arms. "Draezyc has a certain disregard for his etiquette, as I am sure you have seen… I am sure I can procure a magical copy for you if you wish to keep hold of it."
This is crazy… Severus Snape is openly being nice… to me… me… a werewolf… his most despised living enemy after Sirius… and he's being nice… what is wrong with this world…. This is Snape, he is not nice, he is not open with information, and he does not on any occasion offer to tell anybody about what fetishes he may or may not have… someone must have hexed him or something… Maybe he drank something from Neville Longbottom's cauldron or something… This is entirely confusing me.
Anna nodded. "Thank you Severus."
"Perhaps you would both join me and my wife for dinner tonight? I believe there are a few things that need discussion, you would do well to read that first." He jerked his head in the direction f the parcel. "Eight, at the dungeon offices, it should let you in without a password, if not, the password is Diebus Fatalibus. I suggest you remember it well."
Remus was about to reply when Anna nodded, taking Remus' arm "We'd love to…"
Snape nodded and stalked out of the room, his cloaks billowing out impressively behind him.
"That was… odd." Remus frowned. "I wonder if someone's hexed him."
"Seemed genuine enough to me." Anna picked up her notebooks and quills. "You were going to accept weren't you?"
"Anna, he's never like this unless something's up. In fact I don't think I've ever witnessed Snape doing anything like that before. It's very confusing, very unnatural." Remus explained. "But yes, I was going to accept."
"Good, because I wanted to have a talk with Draezyc anyway."
"Oh?"
"I was talking to her in the staffroom earlier, she's actually a very nice person once you get past the whole sado-masochistic side of her. We were going to go shopping to buy dresses for the Halloween ball that Dumbledore wants to put on." Anna smiled. "It will be safer with her, so I wont be in any danger, especially as it's Hogsmeade."
"Oh right." Remus nodded, taking the package under his arm and following Anna out into the corridor. "I'm sure you'll have fun, just don't let her get you drunk in the three broomsticks."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
"Now you sound like Sirius." Remus laughed. "Scary stuff."
~*~
The afternoon passed quickly, and soon Remus found himself cuddled up on a sofa in front of the fire with Anna, the large package between them. Remus had taken off the paper and string, adding it to the fire. The book was old, older than Remus had ever seen, the leather bindings were worn away in patched and the gold spine chipped and dented.
The cover read. ' Ancient Magi of the Old Order.'
"The old order? What's that?" Anna asked, turning the cover of the book.
"Before modern Wizarding laws were implemented in about 1066, after the battle of Hastings, there used to be an autocracy, a society ruled by a single Wizard. He controlled who was and wasn't recognised in amidst his order, and it was rumoured that each autocrat was reincarnated in a different body so it was always the same soul, just different body, as you can imagine this led to difficult times, especially as sometimes the new autocrat would be barely older than a few months old. The system was open to corruption world wide so it had to end." Remus smiled vaguely. "Something I did learn in history of magic."
"So why would I want to know about the old order?"
"Because the old order kept valuable records of Phaerren activity, some were believed to be fake, but now I am not so sure. They knew where the soul syphon was, at the time it was woven into a shroud, but they knew everything there was to know about it."
"And so why does Draezyc know?" Anna asked curiously. "She just read this book?"
"Likely, but there's a long story that goes way back about her family." Remus flipped to the very end of the book. "It should be chronicled in here." He flipped past page after page of names and pictures before landing on the very last page, the last Autocrat Wizarding ruler before the system was changed. The name read- Cajatan Tealamon. "You remember what I told you Draezyc's name was before she married Severus? She's part of the Tealamon family, she's one of the last remaining links to the Old Order that survives today. And believe me there are very, very few. That is my guess as to why she knows all this knowledge about Phaerren magic, and why Voldemort is so lenient with her, nobody else has such a valuable knowledge of this but Draezyc."
"So she's really pure-blood pureblood."
"More so than the Malfoys I believe." Remus nodded. "But I wouldn't like to make any assumptions."
"Oh look at this!" Anna pointed to a paragraph. "Cajatan was infamous for the way he disposed of those he believed were not worthy of his Order. He sliced their bodies into pieces through means of the scelestus curse, now believed to be a dead curse, and scattered their remains countrywide. Sometimes further." She made a disgusted face. "So that is where Draezyc got her inspiration from."
"Most likely." Remus nodded. "And read on further, he lost the soul syphon shroud to the goblins during the final uprising of the Battle of Hastings, but not before using the list to create a list of names of future Phaerrens up until the next millennia. The list was lost during this battle as well, and was supposed to be burnt."
"Do you think I was on that list?"
"If it was a correct list, then yes you would have been."
"How.. I mean… how did they know what my name would have been?"
"It's just something to do with the Soul Syphon, nobody really knows how it works except she who created it, and the primitive is long, long gone." Remus bit his lip. "I wonder how Voldemort knew it was you though? It couldn't have been purely by accident…"
"I want to read about Phaerrens…" Anna took the book into her lap, and almost dropped it in surprise. She let out a short scream as she turned to the first page.
"What?!" Remus picked up the book from her hands and flipped to the first page of information, he looked at the woodcut picture printed on the page and blinked in surprise, then he glanced at Anna. "That's you. An exact copy… of you…"
Anna nodded mutely, pointing at the page. "Read what it says…"
"Annaliamanos Belacquatealamon, 650BC, first Wizarding Leader of the Old Order. Well known for being a Phaerren during the early Archaic Greek era. Wore Soul Syphon Shroud as part of her daily dress. Took on forms of ravens and wolves to gain knowledge of her enemies, was defeated in battle by the potential usurper to her throne, Ava Luvegdna. Luvegdna failed, Annaliamanos' daughter Iphygenia took her throne in 583 BC."
"My name…" Anna whispered. "Anna Belaqua." She pointed at the name in the book… "There's a Tealamon in it… Draezyc…"
"You can probably rest assured that Draezyc knows." Remus put a comforting arm around her shoulder. He gently kissed her cheek. "You should read on further, perhaps you will find something more about yourself." A few more pages ahead was a large picture of a battle. "The Civil uprising of the Old Order, 9 AD. The Belacquatealamon family split down the middle to form the Belaquas and the Tealamons. The Tealamons took the royal ascending order of the throne… The Belaquas fled to the safety of the relatively uninhabited Asian Wilderness," Remus flicked forward a whole bulk of chapters, "there is no further record of their movements until at least the Battle of Hastings as far as I can see, and after that it says the Belaquas died out, there were no further wizarding names of Belaqua in any of the chronicled orders."
Anna sighed. "Why did nobody ever tell me?"
"It's likely that nobody but Draezyc and whoever else knows about this book ever knew it was you." Remus hugged her, closing the book. "You and Draezyc… are related… If not very, very distantly."
Anna nodded against his shoulder, "We should go to their dinner thing, its almost eight and I don't like tothink what Snape would be like if we were late, I've seen what he's like to his class…"
"You don't have to go… If you'd prefer to read…"
"No, let's go. It explains a lot, like why Severus was never really quite as evil towards me as to the rest of you all, and why Draezyc helped us, when I escaped from Voldemort… I can't understand why she never said anything before."
Remus nodded, and stood up, waiting for Anna to quickly brush her hair and slip on her shoes before heading out into the corridor.
TBC
