Puppets
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Five
The End
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Chase was sitting on his desk, legs swinging back and forth as he watched the door swing open. His father walked through, lips drawn into a frown. He blinked, appearing startled at the sight of his son, then rolled his eyes.
"What're you doing here?" Here being Hogwarts. Chase hadn't been back since his last attack at Brookridge and Snape had intended to keep it that way. He didn't trust Dumbledore and didn't want him any where near his son, especially since the old coot had forced Chase to spy on the vampire clans for him. (1)
"Sirius is gone" Chase's fingers were tracing small circles on the top of his desk. His hair was still platinum blond at the tips, but the red had mostly overtaken it, and his eyes were more pink then gray…in fact they were bloodshot. Not to mention puffy.
Snape sneered and shut his door with a solid thump. "You were crying over Black? You barely knew the man Chase and you should be glad for it."
Chase looked away from him and his hair caused his eyes to fall into shadow. "What in the world makes you think I'm crying for Sirius? His death is only temporary."
That gave Snape a moment's pause. He'd stopped in his progress to the liquor cabinet he kept hidden in the classroom and stared at the redhead. He couldn't have just said what Snape thought he had said. "Temporary?"
"Mmhmm." A distracted nod. Snape sighed and fell into his chair with a curse and a petulant air that would give most of his students pause. After all, Professor Snape, most feared teacher in all of Europe, sulking around dramatically and pouting?
Unheard of.
"Of course it is. Lupin and Black are destined to outlive me if for no other reason that to see me driven mad. I was hoping I'd only have to deal with one of them."
Chase snorted then waggled a long finger in his face almost condescendingly. "Oh you were not. I know you better than that Father, so perhaps you should tell that terrible story to one of your naïve little students. You may not like Remus but you love him. You've loved him since you were in school. I know it, you know it, and Remus knows it."
"Through no fault of my own, I assure you." Perhaps he should have gotten that drink while he was up.
As if sensing his thoughts Chase pushed himself up and off of the desk then walked over to the bookcase. He grabbed the bottom edge and pulled it away from the bar to reveal a small stock of various bottles. Some held standard liquors and spirits (2) as well as a few blood wines, and other forms of alcohol aged with blood.
If he hadn't been a vampire and thus impervious to certain human vices he may have suspected he was an alcoholic. Hiding the stuff all of his classrooms and quarters wasn't exactly the most promising of signs.
Chase walked back over, a glass in hand. Snape was tempted to ask what it was then, after realizing he was about to engage in a conversation he no doubt didn't want to engage in, sighed and just drank it down.
"So about Black's temporary death?"
"Hmm? Oh, that. Not to worry, Remus will handle it. It's not important to us."
"Return from the death is very important."
"Why? Supposedly we defy death just by breathing. Not that we breathe often." He paused, scratching the back of his neck. "Does that mean we only defy death some of the time?"
"Chase."
"Oh. Sorry." He blushed then pulled his legs up onto the desk. Snape watched as the boy got into what he assumed was a 'comfortable' position before reaching over and gathering up his papers to protect them from harm. "I was… I don't understand what we are."
He arched an eyebrow at the sudden change in topic. "What we are?"
"Yeah. Are we dead, the damned, descendents of creatures escaped from the very bowels of hell to cause havoc and pain on earth? Can you be born dead?"
"No, maybe, not to my knowledge, and yes, but you wouldn't be a vampire. You'd be dead." He swirled his drink around, considering the questions posed to him. "According to Wizards and Muggles we're all of those things, but it simply isn't true. It's a virus, like what makes Lupin a werewolf. It makes breathing unnecessary, slows the heart so it seems to not beat at all and because of that the blood doesn't move in our systems. That's why we steal it. Without blood we would die, as would most things. We fall victim to blood lust and blood drunkenness but beyond that are unflawed.
"It's inherited of course, but can also be passed through the exchange of fluids. Blood works best. Many believe Vampires cannot breed because we're supposedly dead but that's far from the case, as you should already know. When two Vampires breed they will always make a Vampire child. If a Vampire breeds with a human you have a pure Daywalker. Not as strong as a Vampire, but resistant to even direct sunlight, the need for blood, and blood highs. If a Vampire mates with a non-human who isn't a dark creature you have a Tainted Daywalker. It's usually just a mix of whatever races its parents were." He stared pointedly at Chase who nodded his understanding. "If a Vampire mates with another dark creature chances are a Daemon will result. Some people call them Dark Nymphs but that's the exact truth and one most people can't grasp. They're the most powerful of Dark Creatures because of their background; Mixed but pure at the same time."
"Thomas is a Daemon."(3)
"Who?" Snape asked almost distractedly.
"Dean Thomas." His head was tilted off to the side and his voice had gained an almost dreamy quality to it. "A Daemon. Interesting boy that one is. So we aren't dead?"
"Dean Thomas? The Gryffindor? The Muggle born? Are you insane?"
"Yes, Yes, Yes, and sometimes." He got a cheeky wink before Chase waved his hand dismissively. "We aren't dead?"
"If we were dead we wouldn't be walking and talking." Snape said, trying to make it as simple to follow as possible.
"Mm." Chase sighed and turned away. Again his head was bowed and his face was no longer visible. The distress seemed to roll off of him in thick waves. Snape, who'd never been particularly good at comforting his son or things of that matter, coughed uncomfortably.
"Chase-"
"Sorry Father. Didn't mean to… It's just…if we aren't dead then we can die."
Snape blinked. "Of course. All things die eventually. That's just the nature of what we are."
A drop of blood hit the desk. It was old blood, stagnate and foul, and held no appeal. He reached out, discomfort forgotten in an instant, and turned Chase's face so he could look at the teen. Cherry tears shimmered from beneath long lashes.
Blood tears.
"What-"
"The world is spinning out of control and I can see it all so clearly it's like I can…bloody well reach out and hold the people that I see, but then I can't actually do anything about it!" He shook out of Snape's grasp and seemed to pull in on himself. "People are dying in my head and I close my eyes and I used to dream things and think about other things but now that's all I see and I can never see myself. There is no future for me."
Snape tried his best to scoff. "Of course there is."
"Are you listening?" Chase's eyes narrowed in a very un-Chase way. "I have no future and I know this because I've seen what comes next and everything that I've ever wanted is just…crumbling at my feet, under my finger tips, and I. Can't. Stop. It. What's the point of having this…gift or curse or power if I can't stop anything?"
Snape leaned back in his chair and took a deep drink from his glass. A question he had asked himself many a time. He was a Potions Master unmatched in most of the world, his knowledge of Dark Magicks would make most people wet themselves, and he had an army of vampires perfectly willing to fight and die for him and his son at his command and…
What did it all mean really? What was the point of the knowledge and the power if you couldn't even save the ones who mattered to you? He wasn't much for long drawn out philosophical musings of course, he preferred to leave those to the fashionably depressed teenagers that wandered the halls of Hogwarts, but sometimes he wondered.
"The Gods undoubtedly find it amusing to watch mortals, and immortals, suffer." Not the most positive thought to grave his son with, but truly the most honest one he could manage.
"Is that why you watch him?"
"Watch who?" Though he already had a good idea of whom Chase meant. There was only one person he bothered with besides his son and godson and he really didn't want to go into why it was that he let himself be bothered at all.
"Potter of course." Chase's look was somewhere between amused and scathing. The redhead was really quite infuriating when he knew too much. Which was, coincidently, all of the damn time.
"What makes you think I still watch Potter?" He hadn't allowed Potter to touch him since the conversation with Chase a few months before. It didn't bother him that the teen knew of his nighttime hobbies, exactly, but at the same time there were things no child should know.
Not even his.
"Because I know you." His lips quirked almost ruefully. "We've had this conversation before you know. You go, every night, through the passage that leads to the Gryffindor dorms. She showed it to you when you were in school, so you could see her. Only now you watch him. Watch the night terrors, and the crying, and the way he stares off vacantly at nothing. You might as well hold him again, it's not like not doing it makes me oblivious.
"I don't know why you try to hide anyway."
"He's younger than you are." Not that this little fact meant anything. Age to Vampires was very different than it was to humans. Snape was quickly approaching middle age to humans but was barely a teenager to his clan.
Really…he shouldn't have allowed Potter to occupy so much of his time. Chase had been right, Voldemort suspected him now more than ever. And Dumbledore seemed to be teetering on the edge of control these days, clinging desperately to his little chess pieces.
With Black dead and Lupin drawing away from everyone and everything he'd lost his knights, as it were. Potter was starting to question things and fall into a depression, and with him went the queen piece. Lupin and Black's son was still very much missing, in spite of Lupin trying to track him down, and so went the pawn controlling the remaining knight.
Snape was very quickly running out of time. At the moment hiding in Hogwarts was the safest option for him and Potter, with Chase hidden away at the Scottish Den, but this haven was simply a comfortable prison, with Dumbledore as his jailer.
"Why're you here?" He asked, trying to return to a subject he could maintain his footing in. "I told you not to leave the Den."
"Time is up." Chase sighed. "It's up. Sirius…Siri. He shall not return to us and with him passing our time is up."
Snape closed his eyes for a moment. He could easily picture the slightly awkward child, not quite teen, with ridiculously long black hair and sparkling blue eyes that would eventually turn gray, in true Black form. He was probably the single most innocent person Snape had encountered, completely devoid of darkness and anger and pain in spite of his heritage.
The idea of him dying…hurt a considerable amount. Still he couldn't falter. He had to protect what he had left.
"What do you mean out of time?"
"Remus is about to go after Sirius, and others shall undertake the mission along with him. Siri is gone. They will leave Dumbledore's sight forever, falling under the protection of Death itself. For a time it won't be safe to be here."
"You say that as if it's safe now."
Chase smiled thinly. "He will destroy you if you do not bow to his power and I know a Snape bows to no mortal man." Snape returned the smile. He'd been bowing to Dumbledore's power for a very long time, crushed under the weight of his Debt until it bowed his back and he touched the floor.
"Is that so?"
"The Debt is broken. You gave your life in favor of mine and I am dying. He can't save me." He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "I am going to be one of the first casualties of this war."
Snape frowned and leaned forward some. "What do you mean?" He wanted to shake Chase and demand something more than cryptic half-phrases and words. He wanted the simple factual truth, for his was a vampire and they always dealt in logic before they dealt in the mystic.
He wanted to know how to stop it.
"Death comes early for those who fall, The Underworld will tremble with the Wolf's call, The Shifting Moon shall crack the false seeing glass, with Vampire's Folly shall fall the House of Glass." Chase's voice took on a singsong quality, as if he were reciting a nursery rhyme.
Snape sighed and reached up to rub at the bridge of his nose. "Must you be so cryptic?"
"Atlantis." Chase pursed his lips. "We're to run to Atlantis. We best collect Potter."
"Atlantis." Snape echoed. "Potter can't go to Atlantis. Human can't survive the journey." Factually correct. Atlantis, the sunken city that held one of the original magical schools, could only be entered through the sea. Anyone who had to breath regularly would die.
Chase smirked darkly, fangs glinting. "Who said Potter was human anyway? Everything is about to change and Atlantis is one of the few safe places left."
Snape eyed his son for a moment longer, considering further questioning him. At least about his comment about Potter not being human. But, in the end, he just nodded and stood. Who was he to argue with a seer anyway? Even if he tried Chase was likely to continue to quote cryptic nursery rhymes to him until he got frustrated and gave in.
Why waste time?
Atlantis. It had been a great many years since he'd crossed the watery threshold.
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1) As seen in 'You're the Only One', which can been found on my profile. In theory. (I write out of order.)
2) I don't suppose there are any Saiyuki fans out there? The difference between Spirits and Liquors…
3) As learned in 'Because I Could Not Stop For Death'
4) Okay, seriously this time: This is the last part of Puppets. I wasn't going to post it, since it was originally the first part of 'Mad Season' but it demanded to be here. Hopefully we all understand how Vampires and other creatures exist in this universe.
