Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its characters.
Now that that's out of the way, let's begin…
Last time,
"…I can't imagine what it would be like to have my child turn against me like that."
Ron nods at that, "Yeah, neither can I. Must've been a living nightmare."
"Yeah, well, we've dealt with those before. We'll do it again." Romilda kisses Ron who looks at her gratefully.
"Yes, we will."
Now,
27th December 2001
Severus sits in his study staring at an old picture of his family, unable to help but think that all this would be easier to deal with if Narcissa and Lucius were still around.
"Are you alright, Papa?"
Severus looks up to see Benni standing in the doorway, gazing nervously at him. "I'm fine, Little Benni."
Benni rolls her eyes, "Papa, I have so outgrown that nickname."
"Hey now, that nickname is the first thing I ever said to you."
"Really?" Benni asks in surprise as she comes over to sit in the chair beside Severus' desk.
"Mmhm. Your Père was looking through the photos of you as a baby that your mother gave us, and she was introducing me to you and…and to Sevrin." Severus looks back down at the photo in his hands. "You two were months old already but still so tiny and so very adorable." He looks up at his daughter, "So you see, you can grow up all you like, but you will always be that baby girl as well. At least to me and Père."
Benni smiles at her Papa, tears glistening in her eyes as she leans forward and hugs him. "I think I can live with that." She pulls a photo out of her pocket. "I still keep this on me. I won't ever be able to remember her, but, at least I can think of her, right?"
Severus smiles, looking at the photo. It's Heidi holding both children in front of their old house, he's not sure who took the picture and there's no one left to ask. He is a little surprised that she keeps a photo with Sevrin in it on her, but it would be next to impossible to find a photo of her with her mother without him. That knowledge sort of breaks his heart. "She'd like that," he tells her, then looks away from the picture to his daughter's face. "So what did Harry and Anthony want when they came to the Sanctuary?"
Benni frowns, "It's for the best that's never spoken of again."
"He's not doing something stupid again, is he?" Severus asks in concern. They've got enough to worry about without Harry doing anything Harry-like.
"You know what, I think we may have actually managed to talk him out of the stupid thing," Benni replies, looking impressed with herself. Severus is pretty impressed with that too. "Anyway, can Dannie, Kayla, and Dean come over tomorrow? It's Kayla's birthday so we all want to get together but Kayla's parents kinda suck."
"In what way?" Severus asks, immediately concerned for his student.
Benni shrugs, "All I know is that Kayla doesn't like going home and that her older sister ran away when Kayla started being gone at Hogwarts for most of the year."
Severus frowns, "Well, perhaps you should ask if Kayla would like to spend the summer here instead."
"You'd do that?"
"Come here," Severus tells her, she moves her chair to be closer to her Papa. "I don't know if I've told you before, but my father was not a very nice man. Not to me, and not to my mother. So I spent most of my childhood while they were alive staying with your Aunt Lily, and it probably saved me. I don't know what's happening in Kayla's house, I hope it's not as bad as what happened inside mine, but I will always be willing to help someone who needs a safe place to go. Especially when it is someone you care about."
Benni hugs her Papa again. "I love you, Papa."
"I love you too, Little Benni."
Harry's sitting at his desk in his study, staring at the drawer where all his notes for his investigation into Greyback's attacks are. He sighs, shaking his head, knowing he has to make a decision here. Either he can follow this story and risk everything, or he can leave this room right now and have a tea party with his daughter, the one he promised Bellatrix he would keep safe and give a good life as best he can.
He walks out of his study, shutting the door behind him. He holds the door handle for a moment before he smiles, nodding to himself, and walking away.
"Daddy, will you play with me?" Delphini asks him.
Harry keeps smiling as he agrees and goes over to the dining-room table with her. "What are we playing?"
"Royals. I'm gonna be Auntie Queen Phia, and you can be Princess Jamie. Here's your tiara. We're gonna drink tea and discuss the politics of our kingdom," Delphini explains, handing him a plastic tiara. Harry chuckles as he puts it on his head. "Can we use real tea?"
"Well, if the Queen decrees it, it must be so," Harry replies, "Peppermint?"
Delphini nods excitedly, "Okay, now, we gotta talk about the food shortage. We need more bread."
Harry doesn't recall Vienna ever having a food shortage, but who is he to argue with the Queen. There's never been any doubt about who rules this household, after all.
Yet through it all he can't help how his mind drifts back to what Benni said.
"The world is barely accepting werewolves as it is, can you imagine how devastating it would be to their community if this gets out?"
She's right, he knows this. Surely Greyback does too. He's hated wizards for their treatment of werewolves. Why would he jeopardise the peace? Harry knows the man is a killer, a bad person to his very core, but he's not an idiot. So why?
Draco sits at a table in the breakroom, glaring at the wall opposite him.
"You get anything at the prison?" Ron asks as he walks over with Branson.
Draco's jaw clenches as he nods slowly. "Yeah, and it's not good. Inmate was having some surgery or something when Tonks asked around last time, he was conscious when we went in. Turns out there was someone Sevrin spoke to quite frequently and you're not going to like who."
Ron takes a seat, looking at him expectantly just as Sim walks over from the bench, putting a coffee down in front of Draco, sipping on one herself.
"Bellatrix Black," Sim tells him as she leans against the table.
Branson looks at them in shock from where he stands next to the table. "So we got one nutjob, potentially taught magic by the world's other craziest nutjob."
Draco rubs at his forehead, "Basically, yeah."
Ron frowns for a moment before shaking his head slowly, "Not necessarily. Bellatrix was under the effects of a spell that had sent her insane –"
"Boss, not that we don't empathise with her situation, but spell or not, she was nuts," Sim interjects.
"She tortured good friends of mine, Sim. I'm well aware of that," Ron responds shortly. Sim leans back slightly, nodding. "She died with her mind her own again. We're reasonably certain it was an effect of the dementors. At some point in Azkaban she was cured, at least enough to recognise good from evil and want to do something about it."
"So it's possible that by the time Lupin got there, she was at least semi-sane again," Branson concludes, Ron nodding.
Draco sighs, "If that were the case why would she have taught him anything at all."
"He's the kid of the love of her life. Why wouldn't she have helped him?" Ron points out.
"Regardless of her reasoning, she's the only one who spent enough time with him to teach him anything. We can't exactly question a dead woman, crazy or not. So, basically we've hit a dead end," Sim tells them all.
Draco nods, "She obviously can't have helped him escape so we're missing something. Not to mention, teacher or no, he has no wand. So this still doesn't explain how he can control his magic."
"It's my understanding that his father is quite proficient in wandless magic. Perhaps he saw how Professor Lupin did it?" Branson suggests.
"No, he never saw him do magic at all until the night he attacked them, except maybe apparition, and even then very little." The other three look at Draco in confusion, he sighs, "Baggage from the first war."
"That attack, he used magic then, didn't he?" Ron questions, a frown on his face.
"Yeah, from what I remember no one was sure how he managed that either. Though we've since learnt he has an…instinctual mastery of the cruciatus curse."
Sim and Branson look at him in shock, he shrugs, "I don't understand it either but he can cast it without actually casting it. As far as anyone knew he'd never even heard of the curse but he…he used it."
"I've never heard of anything like that before. Do you think he can do it with the other Unforgivables?" Sim asks.
"Not that we're aware of, pretty sure he would've killed them that day if he could use the killing curse like that," Ron says, though Branson frowns.
"Sounds like he wanted to cause them pain, not kill them."
"Regardless, none of this explains how he used magic beyond that."
Sim sighs, "Kids use magic accidentally, it's as instinctual for some to levitate something to them as it is lifting your arm to get it. Maybe that's all it was. High pressure situation and it just happened."
"We don't even know that he's using magic now, no one's seen it."
"Which leads us right back to who is helping him now and who helped him escape." Branson huffs, "We're going in circles and it's starting to piss me off."
"You and me both," Draco agrees, "You learn anything useful from Snape?"
"Yeah, well, speaking of pissed off. I'm not sure how cooperative he's going to be anymore," Ron admits with a wince.
"He's temperamental at the best of times."
Ron opens his mouth to respond when there's a flurry of activity from the bullpen and the head of the Auror department, Gaiwan Robards, hurries into the breakroom.
"Reported sighting of Lupin in Knockturn Alley," He tells them. The four are on their feet in an instant, moving to join the others.
A group of ten Aurors descend on Knockturn Alley, moving in on both ends of it, floos shut off the network by order of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
They move into the shop he was sighted in and find him about to impale a witch with a sword.
"Drop the sword!" Ron orders as Aurors surround him, wands all pointed at him.
Sevrin turns slowly, a sick grin on his face as he spots Draco. "Little Dragon. It's good to see you again, Cousin," He says in French.
"He said drop it," Draco replies in French, gesturing to the sword.
He drops the sword, chuckling as Aurors place him under arrest.
It's fifteen minutes after the arrest that Draco's sitting in a room watching Ron and Tonks interrogate Sevrin on how he escaped. Branson and Sim sit beside him as they watch, eating popcorn as people often do while watching the two work. Their interrogations are legendary, the two have a way about their interrogations that is amazing to watch and have a higher rate of confessions working together than anyone else in the department. But Draco's not interested in that, not now. Something's wrong, Sevrin's not talking at all. He's always been one to gloat.
The door opens and Draco looks over to see Hermione walking in.
"I need someone to sign off on the floo reconnections for Knockturn Alley," She tells them, looking over to see the interrogation taking place. She stares for a moment, taking a deep breath. "So that's him, huh?"
"That's him."
Hermione frowns, "He's not what I expected."
Draco nods, "People think of dark wizards and they think of people like Voldemort and Greyback, mutations, more than anything. Most of the time they're just people. Totally unassuming people."
Working in a different department of Magical Law Enforcement, Hermione doesn't deal with dark wizards anymore. She didn't realise she'd imagined them all to be like Voldemort, like living nightmares personified.
"Somehow, this is scarier." She shakes her head before handing the paperwork in her hands over to Draco who looks it over before signing it.
"Um, guys?" Sim asks. Draco and Hermione look up to find she and Branson staring in dawning horror at the interrogation room. They look over to see Tonks and Ron have stood up and moved back, and Sevrin morphing before their eyes until it isn't him standing there anymore.
"I know, Polyjuice potion is a bitch, ain't it?" The man now standing before them says.
"Get Robards, now!" Draco directs Sim who leaves the room immediately to do so.
"Who are you?" Tonks demands.
The man smiles, "A pawn. A pawn in a much larger game. So glad to have you all here, you and your audience," he says, nodding towards the window leading to the room Draco and the others stand in. "But if you're all in here. Who's out there?"
"A distraction," Draco mutters before cursing under his breath and stalking out into the bullpen, Hermione following after. "I knew something was wrong, I fucking knew it." He looks around, trying to find the biggest fuss.
Then his phone rings. He looks down, cursing again as he answers.
"Benoîte, not a good time."
"Draco, it's Tom. He's here. Sevrin's here at the Sanctuary, and he's not alone."
"Get the others," He tells Hermione, "Sevrin's at the Sanctuary."
Benoîte sits at the front desk of the Sanctuary, it's the morning after the full moon. She's updating patient files for those who received medical treatment for injuries sustained during the full, thankfully said injuries are less and less serious as wolf and human merge more and more. Most of their clients choose to merge when given the chance, some still stay at the sanctuary, afraid of their wolves and unwilling to work with them. They tend to be hurt the worst, though the Sanctuary does its best to create an environment that the wolves will be calm in to keep self-injuries to a minimum.
"How's it going?"
Benni looks up to see her Aunt Mary beside her. "More interesting than most of what I do at school."
Mary snickers, "Fair enough."
The door chimes so Mary moves to help whoever came in as Benni goes back to the computer screen.
"Hi, welcome to the Werewolf Sanctuary. Can I help you?"
Something about the way she speaks in a gentle voice has Benni looking up, expecting a child. Most times if a child or teenager comes in here without an adult something's very wrong and Benni wants to know if they need to call the Aurors again.
The answer, of course, is yes. But not for the reasons Benoîte originally excepted.
Her eyes widen as she moves towards the window to the office behind her where Tom sits, glad that they thought to have an opening window here to make communication with the front desk possible without having to walk to the door down the other end of a hallway.
As she had suspected it would, the movement draws the boy's attention to her, but she ignores it momentarily to lock eyes with Tom who moves over to the window.
"Take my phone, the password is Moonfoot, call Draco. Sevrin's here."
Tom's eyes widen, flicking behind her momentarily before he takes the phone from her and calmly walks back to the desk.
"Benni, long time no see, brother. Though, I hear it's sister, now."
Benni takes a deep breath, turning around to see Sevrin. Multiple people stand around the reception area, all with their wands out, all clearly here with Sevrin. One holds a wand directly to Mary who glares at Sevrin but for now stays quiet.
"It always has been, I just hadn't put words to it yet," Benni replies, swallowing harshly.
Sevrin smirks, switching to French as he continues, "I have to say, I wasn't surprised. Our connection, no matter your denial, is as strong now as it was eight years ago. You always did feel a little…off."
"I don't think I'm the one who's a little off."
"Now, sister, please. Don't joke. You were never the funny one. Tell me, how is our sister?"
Benni frowns, remembering how close Jamie and Sevrin once were. The mischief they would get in to, the eavesdropping on parental discussions and arguments. "She's fine. Happy. What do you want, Sevrin?"
"And how is Blaise?"
"Also fine, what do you want, Sevrin? Why are you here?"
Sevrin smirks, "I want what we all want. To rid the world of evil, and I want you to help me."
"Our world is doing just fine. Besides, I think we have very different concepts of evil."
"Now, now, Benni. You're hurting my feelings. I'm not the bad guy, here. You're the one working with monsters, you're the one aiding them, forcing them into society, they are animals, Benoit!"
"It's Benoîte," She says sharply, "And we are all animals. But if you're referring to falling victim to baser instincts, I'd like to point out that werewolves attack humans because of a learnt fear. You're doing exactly the same thing but you have the distinct advantage of higher-level thought that werewolves don't usually have when they first meet humans and instantly have to fight for their lives."
"HOW DARE YOU SAY I'M THE SAME AS THEM!"
Benni doesn't even flinch in the face of her brother's anger, calmly responding, "I'm not. I'm saying you're worse."
"How dare you?"
"Werewolves don't consciously choose to harm people unless actively being attacked. You are. You are making the decision to cause harm and you are making the decision that your life is worth more than all of theirs and that's just not true."
Sevrin's eyes flash darkly as his smirk falls away, "I see you've thrown your lot in with them. How disappointing." He turns and walks away, calling out just as the door closes behind him, "Do it."
The others who came with him walk out the door before turning and facing the building again.
Benni feels a flicker of a plan in her mind and knows on instinct exactly what her brother is about to do. She dives at her Aunt, tackling her even as she pulls out her wand.
The wizards outside all cast at once, "Bombarda Maxima!"
"Protego."
Harry's sitting at the dining-room table, Delphini eating a lunch of mac n cheese across from him as he gives Bella her bottle, when a knock sounds at the door.
Having his hands full, he has Tessel answer it.
"Master Potter, Master Goldstein is at the door."
"Can you let him in please?"
A few moments later Anthony walks in the front door and crosses into the dining-room.
"Okay look, I know you're on paternity leave but Mr Cuffe won't listen and I swear I'm right about this."
Harry nods, "Greyback isn't doing it?"
"Greyback isn't the one beh- Wait what?" Anthony stares at him, "You already know?"
"I had a feeling."
Anthony huffs, dropping into a seat beside him, "We can't just sit on this. When it was Greyback, yeah, your cousin was right. But not if he's being set-up."
"I agree, but I'm on leave. You need to get Cuffe on board."
"He won't listen, Harry. If someone's framing Greyback there's something big going on and the Aurors have no idea."
Harry huffs, nodding. He looks to Delphini who's looking at the two in interest. "How'd you like to visit Grumps?"
"Grumpy! Grumpyyyyyy!"
Harry calls Remus, gets his agreement to watch the kids, drops them off through the floo, and heads into his study with Anthony where he pulls out his notes and wheels over his pinboard and whiteboard.
"Okay, let's get to work."