Authors note: I do not own any of this.
The Wicked Stepfathers
Severus joined Draco in front of the fire, settling down quietly next to him, prepared to be silent until addressed. They sat for a good hour in silence before Draco's curiosity got the better of him.
"So how does it work, you father Black and Lupin? I know Werewolves are pack animals, and there is alpha male and then the rest are subordinates with each member having their own rank. Somehow though I can't see you as a subordinate, father is a natural Alpha as is that Black fellow with his strutting around like he was head cock! And Lupin's a beta wolf if ever I saw, but you, where do you fit? Are you like Alpha female? Or the equivalent?"
"You really want to understand how we work? Bearing in mind you were offended earlier by just the mention of our "pack" as you refer to it as. I doubt you actually want to know the true mechanics behind our relationship, and if you are so eager to find out whom is Alpha then you should ask the wolf."
"Perhaps you're right, the thought of my father in bed with anyone is enough to turn my stomach – no offence, I'm sure – actually sorry I can't even complete that sentence in my mind with out feeling the urge to gouge my eyes out."
"You'll be pleased to know that I am secure enough not to worry about my godson not lusting after me." There was a dry note in his words as he gazed at the fire, with Draco by his side blushing redder than a Weasley.
"The reason your father revealed all he had today is because you will be living in a completely different world as of a few days ago. By now you'll be aware that there is a large proportion of the wizarding world within the school, and everyone is talking of a practice drill? Yes well, as of the five days ago there is nothing left other than Hogwarts. Imagine Lye powder and how it irritates the lungs if inhaled, how it irritates the flesh if it settles upon it, now imagine that this lye powder in fact killed you but slowly, sending you mad with pain and sickness, and that it killed everything it touched just as slowly, that it coated the world in a suffocating blanket of death. That nothing was safe, and that when it was spread it needed an explosion to such a great extent that the very heat turned the sand on beaches to glass, that the people around where it exploded were killed instantly burning up in seconds. The Muggles had weapons like these, they called them Nuclear, and after a long though incredibly private battle two Muggle nations set them off, aiming for each other.
"Outside of Hogwarts this is how the world is. This powder will stay there until the winds blow it away up into the sky, but it will remain just as deadly eventually it'll lose it's potency, but we're talking about centuries here.
"We have saved as much as we could, but we'll have to leave here. Even if we sustained our protection for the world to remove the poisons, the atmosphere will have changed and wont be able to support us, the weather will be severe, and the best we could hope for is waiting out a millennia for nature to organize a new world suitable for us, and from what I've read of evolution it will all be completely different. Do you know that Earth is only perfect for life, or life as we are because of small thing. The placement of the planet to the sun, the moon to the earth, the gases that surround the planet. Draco, in a few decades Muggles would have effectively ruined the protection blanket around the earth and we would have had to move anyway.
"You will know about magic from your history of magic class I'm sure. You'll know of the splitting of the Fae, the reason why the most famous of the magical folk are never seen, mere myths now of a time long gone. House Elve's are what is left of the Elfin folk, and Leprechauns of the Fae. They left, they left here almost two thousand years ago, and our ancestors decided that we'd be better suited staying, staying in a world that had already begun to shake off it's belief in gods and magic.
"Perhaps they were right to stay, if we'd gone then we would no longer be as we are, no longer numerous and stable, we'd have either interbred, weakened by our frailties, or we'd have merged fully with the magical folk and no longer been a race of our own but many different races.
"Now though, we have no choice, there is enough of us to start again, to retain that what makes us wizard and witch alike. Or we give in gracefully to our destinies and become Elfin and Fae alike.
"Anyway, you'll find there are a whole heap of people out there, awake and stunned. You'll be with your classmates as they would not have been safe with the others once they wake, and the Were as well, so you'll recognize some of the other students not of our house. You will leave all prejudice behind however Draconis, I will make this clear now. However I have need for a small staff of potions experts, which you will be one of, you will aid in creating the wolfsbane and other necessary potions. We are in a time of work, no more of this ordering from catalogues…" Draco has the grace to blush at this, his godfather had rollocked him for the lazy attitude of ordering his school supplies.
"Instead we will have a team of botanists cultivating the necessary ingredients, we will have people working the orchards to produce us fruit, working the land for crops, working the animals for meat, we will have people creating us clothing, healing us. Everything will have to be done by ourselves, and we will be living on rationing for the foreseeable future.
"As an intelligent man you will understand the implications of this, we're talking about starting two whole new civilizations. One which will include Muggles. We have been joined by several large farms of which are run by muggles, and you will integrate with them, and you will make them feel welcome."
"I'm scared…" came the soft whisper, and Draco found himself wrapped up in a tight hug, barely catching the softly spoken words "We all are…"
The pair sat quietly, with Draco shooting nervous glances at his father's lover, "Does this change things? Are you now going to be Dad, or Daddy?"
"Do you want that from us, we've always looked at you as ours, but that doesn't mean we need to force you to call us things that you might not want to. Especially me. Severus I can understand if you want, he's been there throughout your life, openly doting on you, but I don't mind if you wish for us to be remain as Draco and Remus"
"I've always though of Severus as my dad, he was often more approachable than my own father you know, even when he's angry you know he wouldn't raise a hand to you, Dad though sometimes, he looks so intimidating"
"Tell me about it, but I'll tell you something, he's the kindest man that I've met, they both are. Your father though, he's well restrained about things. He loves you more than anything in the world, and it hurts him to think that you were being given a hard time because of what you learnt. He was nervous that you'd start to believe what you were told, that you'd start to become what they told you you were. He was also petrified that you'd find out about us and hate him.
"He was also suffering for the first few years of your life, and by the time he woke up enough from his pain, well he'd missed out on good years, and has been playing catch up with Severus since."
"Dad said that he married mum to get an heir, so what about you and Severus, didn't you?"
An uncomfortable silence fell, before Remus beckoned Draco onto his lap, facing him towards the fire, while the strong arms wrapped around his waist, his stubbled chin resting on his shoulder.
"Severus has always been a talented potions master, before you were born; a good two years before you were born, he stumbled across a formula to enable male partners to have children. We discussed, or he told us that he was going to carry the child, and took from both myself and your father.
"Because of my dna in the mix it sped up the term for the pups to be carried, from conception to birth it took less than three months and we were blessed with a litter of pups. They were the most gorgeous things you've ever seen. Natural animagi from the offset, born as actual wolf pups, tiny and small, and Severus must have slept for a week afterwards. " His amber eyes stared at the flames, moist at the memory of the children, his arms instinctively tightening around his adopted pup.
"It was a hard birth, but afterwards we saw it was best that he had been the one to carry, my body would have killed them on the first moon change, and Lucius wouldn't have been able to carry them past the first month. Severus though, he grew as big as a house, and loved every second of it.
"We had ten, can you believe it, ten pups, six males, and four females, and they were the sweetest things. Within two months they'd all changed into their human forms and kept them, and by the time they were six months Severus was swearing that each and every one of them could walk.
"I was away for the full moon, keeping away, and Lucius had been taken ill, seriously ill, he ended up in St Mungo's and Severus was making potions trying to heal him. They were left with Hagrid, the nearest person at the time. When I returned the next day Hagrid was near death, tied up against the whomping willow, with tiny cuts all over his body, an offering for the creatures of the Forest no doubt.
"I revived him enough to hear him gasp out that they'd been taken, that he'd been attacked by some unknown creature, he said Voldemort – anyway, I went to Hagrid's and well I tracked the scent down to the forest where I found three of my little daughters half eaten, and the remains of the others.
"I don't think I'll ever get over that day, I don't think any of us will. After that Sev refused to make another potion, and your dad was told that he had to have a heir to the bloodline. Sev made him the fertility potion, and then doted on your mother throughout the pregnancy, I think it was his way of moving on.
"When you were born well it was like you were ours, but not. Lucius was afraid to get too attached in case something happened to you, but Severus he'd hardly leave your room. You were fed so many protection potions and kept so healthy, I can't think of a single time you were left alone." His lips curved into a smile, though it didn't chase the haunted look from his eyes. "You was his salvation, it's no wonder you grew to be a spoilt brat"
"Hey, I am still here you know, and I'll have you know it's not brattishness it's confidence" They smiled at each other before hugging each other tightly. "I'm sorry, it would have been nice to have a big family"
"We have a big family, we have your dads big hair, and Sev's big nose, and my big …" Remus broke off into a wolfish grin.
"I don't wanna know about your bigness thank you, you're practically my Da now"
"Your Da hmm… that means though that I get to send you to bed without supper and spank you for being naughty"
"I said practically, so no to the spanking. But it'll be nice to have someone else to fall back on."
"Sirius as well, he's part of this big happy family, But he's only little so you'll fit right in" He started to tickle the blonde on his knee.
"Da…? If you an' Sev are lovers why did he tell on you, why did he tell everyone that you were a wolf, I mean it would have been perfect for you both to be working and living together, you could socialize without Dumbledore getting suspicious."
"He didn't"
"So if he didn't, then why did he teach us all about werewolves when you were off ill?"
"It was next in the syllabus Draco, DADA teacher get's a lesson plan for the year, and we have to stick to it. Werewolves were down for that day. It was a good job really, I mean would you believe the stuff he taught if I had taught you it, and then you found out I was a werewolf? You'd think I was just lying to save my skin. Actually I might have done, I get a little squeamish when I start thinking about the ways to kill me."
"Da…?"
"Yeah…?"
"Is he a vampire?" they burst out into snickers.
"Well if you believe anything I tell you about werewolves you should know that werewolves and vampires hate each other, but that's just a big lie. But I would have smelt it on him. And think about it Blondie, you've seen him in the sunlight, he loves Italian food, his Mother has been a devout Catholic all of his life, I doubt it. He says – cos we've all asked him, it's just our thing to wind him up. He says, his Dad was Romany, and his Mother comes from Romania, it's hereditary apparently. That an he's got an obsession about potions, I mean he claims that the best place to make potions is in somewhere cold because you can control the temperatures better, I just think he got sun burnt once and has loathed the sun ever since, but don't tell him that else he'll have my guts for garters!"
"You know about us leaving?"
"Yeah, he's offered to wipe it from our minds, not that it'll do much good. It's scary as hell out there, we went up to the tower and sat on the roof and stared out, it's just like a wasteland out side of the shell. We'd never survive here, it's best for us; we can reacquaint ourselves with the raw magic." He ruffled the blonde's hair affectionately, grinning at the faint moan of protest.
"Da…?" This time it was with a faint hint of fear.
"Yeah…?"
"Are you the Alpha?"
"It's not quite that simple, but in the broadest sense of the word yes. I'm part wolf, we're pack animals, it just works better that way for us anyway, when someone has the ultimate responsibility. It's hard to describe, we all look after each other, my finances are in a very healthy way after your father got his hands on my paperwork, and I've learnt how to deal with people like Fudge from him. I also gained Sev, and a son. Your father gets someone to vent to, he gets to come home and scream and shout and do all the things a refined Malfoy never does, he gets enjoy not being so responsible all the time. Sev however gets to live longer.
"You know we went away on holiday your father and I, during term time, I think he lost almost a stone and was so pale. He'd forgotten to eat some days, but he had a healthy stock of potions, and Poppy claimed she had a wider range of strange and rare potions than St Mungo's. I think he managed to get through a years supply of ingredients in two weeks."
"So who decides who is and isn't in your pack? I mean like Sirius, did you all decide, or was it just you? What if we fall out, I mean what if I mess up, does that mean you'll stop Dad from talking to me?"
"Draco, that will never happen, you're his son and nothing could stop him being your Dad, you have to know that." Hugging the trembling blonde tightly he sighed softly. "No one will take him away from you, I promise."
"Draco love, stop thinking of it as a clear cut "I'm in charge" situation. It's a partnership, we're all equal, none of us would, or could force the others to do anything, it's like a marriage, but with more than two people" He smiled into the others hair, "And no Sirius isn't just someone I decided should be part of the pack. He's an attractive man, full of admirable qualities, and he's fallen head over heals for your Dad."
"Does that mean like anyone you're attracted to becomes pack?" The question came out quite sharp, though Draco wasn't sure whom he was more offended for.
"No pet, it's not an open relationship, Sirius has been sniffing round us for years, he just had an unfortunate reaction to Severus. You remember how you were at Primary School love? When you liked someone you hit them, well that's Sirius all over, except he'd take it too far. It's taken two years for him to realize half killing us wasn't going to make us accept him. You know he's always known about us three, never told anyone else though. He's good like that."
"Does this mean you aren't happy just the three of you? I mean does it mean that you don't love each other as much anymore?"
"No pet, he's just part of us, like you are, but not like you. Even Sev notices when he's absent from us for too long, he's grown on us like mould on bread."
"Oh, ok. But surely he's going to be like the others, I mean Potter's not going to be with us, and he dotes on Potter"
"It's Harry Draco, and no Sirius is staying with us, he loves Harry, but Harry has a life that doesn't really include Sirius. That's not to say when everything settles and they are I guess woken, that they won't be in each other's lives."
"So we're second best, he can't have Harry so it's us"
"no pet, it's more like we're first choice, he could have decided to play a minor role in Harry's life, but decided to forgo Harry altogether."