Title: Family Affair

Author: Daeleniel Shadowphyre

Feedback: darkone2813 at mindspring dot com

Fandom: "Harry Potter" series, by J.K. Rowling

Genre: Angst/Drama

Rating: R (Maybe only PG-13, but R is safer.)

Notes: Please reference the prologue for the summary, disclaimer, and any other relevant information.

Distribution: Ask, and ye shall receive.

Chapter Five:

August 1, 1999

Hogwarts, Severus Snape's Chambers

With considerable relief, Severus allowed himself to sink into his favorite chair before the fire in his sitting room. The Wolfsbane potion was finished, cooled and preserved, and now sat bottled in a specially spelled cupboard to await the arrival of Remus Lupin. Severus reminded himself yet again to discuss with Remus the possibility of refinement of the potion during the remainder of the summer and what free moments there would be during the coming school year. When he wasn't spending time with his son, of course.

Severus went very still in his chair. His son. There was always the possibility that Harry would find the idea of spending time with Severus appalling. In fact, it was more than likely, considering how Severus had treated him during all four years of his schooling at Hogwarts. Harry would be perfectly within his rights to wish to have nothing to do with him.

Rather like those Ministry bastards had tried to make him want nothing to do with his uncle all those years ago...

Seven year old Severus groaned as the sunlight hit his eyes. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but it was most likely too long if the sun hurt. He couldn't really remember how he got back to the house, but he did remember the woods... and his mother... and the wolf.

The wolf!

Sev sat up quickly, biting his lip at the stab of pain that went through his arm. His mother had saved him from the wolf, but... was the wolf okay? There had been something very familiar about the wolf, even when it was clawing at him. That had hurt. But he didn't want the wolf to be hurt. Sev had read about wolves, and he knew that if the wolf had attacked him like that, then it was his fault for getting it the way. The wolf couldn't help it.

As if summoned with a spell, Sev's Mother was there. She sat on the edge of the bed and took her son into her arms, being careful of the arm that hurt. Sev buried his face in her robes, then pulled back and looked up at her.

"Mother?" he asked, peering up into her face and seeing the red around her vivid blue eyes. Mother had been crying? He bit his lower lip. "Mother... is the wolf okay?"

The reaction he got stunned him. Mother promptly burst into tears, and Sev had tried everything his scared mind could think of to calm her. Brokenly, Mother had told him of how his Uncle Rich had turned into a wolf on the night of the full moon. She scolded him through her tears for going out after she had "expressly forbidden any of you children from leaving the Manor!" Sev sat silent through this, thinking. He knew from what he had heard his Father say before that people who turned into wolves on the full moon were called werewolves. Father also said that werewolves were evil monsters that ate people, and made other werewolves by biting people. His Uncle Rich was a werewolf?

"Was that Uncle Rich last night? On the inside?" he asked in a timid voice. Mother looked at him curiously, then she did something that surprised Sev. She smiled at him, and hugged him tight.

"No, poppet," Mother said softly. "When a werewolf transforms, they aren't the humans they are the rest of the time. The wolf takes over. Your Uncle Rich was still in there, I'm sure, but he could do nothing to stop the wolf from hurting you."

Sev nodded and went back to thinking. That fit better with what he had read in the library after hearing Father shouting about werewolves. Father thought that all werewolves were evil and bad and should be killed. Sev snorted; Father also thought that Sev's liking of books was foolish, but Sev knew better. Books held stuff he didn't know. If he read the books, he knew the stuff in them. He liked knowing things.

He also liked Uncle Rich.

"Can I see him, Mother?" he asked suddenly. He was sorry he had asked when the tears came back to Mother's eyes.

"No, poppet," she said, her voice thick. "Not yet. He's gone to the Ministry to re... report the a-attack." Sev looked at his Mother, shocked.

"Will he get in trouble?" he asked fearfully. At his Mother's nod, he asked, "Will... will they h-hurt him?"

"I don't know, poppet," she whispered, tears flowing down her cheeks, matching the twin streams that were coming from his own eyes. "I just don't know."

--+--

It was two months before the Ministry let Uncle Rich go. Sev had made Mother promise to get Uncle Rich back to the Manor as soon as he was free; he had to assure himself that his uncle was okay.

It wasn't a fun day. A stuck-up man from the Ministry came first with his Mother to talk to Sev. They were arguing when they got to Sev's room. Sev took one look at the man -- whose name was apparently Auror Fudge -- and didn't like him. As he listened to the fight, he began to like him even less.

"--that the boy hasn't been contaminated, Regina!" the Auror was saying. Sev sucked in his breath. Nobody but family was allowed to call Mother by her first name! This man wasn't family!

"You will address me as Lady Snape, Fudge," Mother commanded the man, and Sev drew back a little at the coldness in his Mother's voice. That was his Mother's "rage voice" that she used when Father made her really angry. "And do you honestly think I wouldn't know if my son was a werewolf?" Sev's eyes widened; they were talking about him!

"You've harbored a werewolf before," Fudge snarled. Severus scowled at the man; he really didn't like him. Unfortunately, the man decided that the argument was over and turned, seeing Sev. He put on a big smile, which didn't fool Sev for a moment. "Hello, you must be Severus! How are you today?"

Sev sneered at the man like he'd seen Father do to people he didn't like, then looked away. He wasn't going to talk to such a bad man. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mother put a hand over her mouth to hide a smile. Fudge, on the other hand, looked mad for a moment, but then covered it with another smile that looked very fake and very out of place on the man.

"Well, then, let's just get this business over with, shall we?" he said in a fake cheery tone. He took something from his pocket and held it out to Sev. "Go on, hold out your hand, lad."

Sev eyed the thing mistrustfully. He could see now that it was a necklace of some sort with a charm in the shape of a muggle cross. The metal was sort of grey and sort of white, and Sev realised with a start that it was made out of silver. He knew silver hurt werewolves. If this man thought he was a werewolf, then why would he give him silver? He looked questioningly at his Mother.

"Go ahead, Severus," Mother said, nodding. Sev, however, could see with his sharp eyes that Mother was tense. She was looking at the necklace with a mad look, like she couldn't stand the sight of it. And at the same time, she looked... sad? That made him even more wary. Still, his Mother had said it was okay. Scowling at Fudge, he slowly reached out a hand and took the necklace.

As soon as he did, Fudge let go of the chain, leaving Sev holding the necklace by himself. All at once, strange feelings began to wash over him. He couldn't understand what they were, but he knew they were mad feelings, fear feelings. Later in his life, he would understand that these feelings were hate, revulsion, disgust, and terror. For now, he just knew that they were things he should not feel. Bad feelings. And they all seemed to be directed at werewolves. He could feel the tingle of magic reaching up from the necklace to get at him.

NO! Severus clenched his jaw tight and pushed the feelings away with his mind like Mother had taught him to do with strange magic. The bad man was trying to put a spell on him! He wanted to spell Sev into not liking werewolves like his Uncle! He shoved the magic away, hard! Glaring at the man, he tossed the necklace to the ground at Fudge's feet.

"I'm not a werewolf," he spat, the venom in his voice directed solely at the bad man in front of him. This seemed to please the man, though, which made Severus scowl even more. The sound of Mother clearing her throat distracted him.

"Your Uncle Rich is here, Severus," she said in a neutral tone. Sev felt his heart light up with joy at the thought of seeing his beloved Uncle Rich again. After this idiot, he needed to see his Uncle. Uncle Rich always cheered him up.

"Good," he said, sneering again at the man. You can't spell me, he thought furiously at the man. Turned to Mother, he said, "Please, can we go see him now?"

Mother stared at him for a long time with a funny look on her face. Then she smiled faintly and nodded. "Yes, poppet, we can go see him now." The sound of the name Mother liked to call him cheered him even more. She was happy with him! Still conscious of the bad man in the room, Sev edged around him and took Mother's hand, pulling her out of the room.

Fudge followed.

Uncle Rich was standing in the sitting room, being watched by Father. Sev's eyes widened in shock. Uncle Rich looked like he hadn't slept at all since he'd left, and there was a big bruise on the side of his face. Father was sneering at him, which seemed to make Uncle Rich draw in on himself. Like he wanted to disappear. Well, Sev wasn't going to let him disappear!

"Uncle Rich!" he cried happily and ran to his uncle. Uncle Rich spun around at Sev's words, his eyes going wide in shock, and before he could say anything Sev flung his arms around the man and hugged him. Uncle Rich stiffened in his arms, but Sev only hugged him tighter. After what seemed like hours, his uncle finally, carefully, put him arms around Sev and hugged him back.

"Get your filthy paws off my son!" Father roared. Uncle Rich jumped and tried to pull away, but Sev hung on, turning his head to glare at Father.

"Don't you talk to Uncle Rich like that!" he shouted. Father's face twisted into anger, and Sev was momentarily afraid that he would strike him. But Father made himself calm down and speak to Sev in a normal voice.

"Severus, he's a werewolf," Father said. "A dark creature. Dangerous. Now, I am your father and I want what's best for you. Step away from the monster before it hurts you."

Rage flared up inside Sev at those words, along with some of the feelings that the necklace had made him feel. Only they weren't directed at werewolves this time-- they were directed at his Father.

"Uncle Ulrich," Sev hissed, pronoucing the difficult name firmly in his intensity, "is a he, not an it. He's not a monster, he's my uncle. He wouldn't hurt me."

"Foolish boy," Father snapped. "He already has! Or have you forgotten what he did to your arm two months ago!"

"The wolf did that to me, not Uncle Rich!" Sev snapped back, tightening his hold on the man that had started to tremble at the mention of the healed claw marks on his arm. "Uncle Rich would have stopped the wolf if he could, but he couldn't!"

"He is the wolf, you pathetic child!" Father roared again.

"NOT RIGHT NOW HE ISN'T!" Sev bellowed at the top of his seven year old lungs. In the stunned silence that followed, he went on, "Does he look like a wolf right now? Does he have fur? Claws? No! He's human! Right now, Uncle Rich is in control, not the wolf. The wolf only has control on the full moon--"

"Which is when your uncle turns into a blood-thirsty beast," interrupted Fudge from the doorway. Sev turned furious eyes on the Auror, but Fudge kept talking, apparently oblivious to the rising feeling of what an older Severus Snape would recognise as rage in his seven-year-old self. "--so it's really in your best interest to have the monster put down," Fudge said; Sev snapped.

"Was it in my best interest to try and put a spell on me?" he hissed, eyes flashing at the Auror. "Was it in my best interest -- or the best interest of my family -- to try and control me? To make me feel things you wanted me to feel?" Sev heard Father swear angrily and felt a flare of triumph. If there was one thing his father didn't like, it was people trying to control his family. Auror Fudge had tried to do just that.

"You tried to spell me!" Sev shouted at the Auror, who by now had turned quite pale. "You tried to make me not like Uncle Rich!" And then suddenly, realisation struck. "You tried to make me hate," he whispered, not wanting to believe. He'd heard his father use that word, but his mother had told him not to use it; that it was a powerful word for very powerful emotions. Right then, he could feel it building in him. Strong, powerful anger, directed not at his uncle... but at Fudge. "You failed," he whispered coldly, tears pricking at his eyes. "You failed to make me hate him. You've made me hate you instead."

"I-- no, I--" Fudge stammered, but Sev was no longer listening. He buried his face in his uncle's robes, clinging to the older man -- the werewolf, his mind acknowledged -- like a lifeline. Dimly, he could hear Mother and Father ordering Fudge out of their house, to never bother them again over such nonsense. And Uncle Rich was holding him, speaking softly and soothingly in a thick voice, and Sev supposed his uncle was crying, too. And then Mother was there, embracing them both and smiling with relief and joy.

"Well done, poppet," she murmured into his ear. "You did very well. I'm proud of you, Severus."

"Severus!"

Severus jerked awake with a start, not quite believing he had fallen asleep. Disoriented, he looked around for the person that had called his name... then focused on the fireplace. Remus Lupin's head and shoulders sat in the fireplace, signs of the recent change in his eyes, worry and anxiety and weary pain chasing themselves across his features.

For a moment, Severus was thrown back in time to the hospital wing after the Shrieking Shack incident, seeing those same signs and emotions on the face of his slightly younger Potions partner. He remembered that, along with the painful memory of the scars his uncle had received at the hands of the ministry, seeing that look on Remus's face had been what had made him bound and determined to keep Remus from going through what Ulrich Delaney had suffered.

"Hm?" Severus mumbled, still half-caught in sleep and memory. "Remy? What is it?"

"Sev, wake up!" Remus said through the fire. From behind Remus came a startled and much-loathed voice, saying incredulously, "You call him Sev!"

"Remus has had my permission as well as the right to use that name since our sixth year," Severus snapped, now fully awake. "A right that you, Black, have yet to earn." He sat up, sneering beyond Remus's image at Black, who narrowed his eyes.

"What does sixth year have to do with it?" he demanded. Severus snorted. Remus rolled his eyes and looked back over his shoulder.

"Quite a bit, most of which is none of your business, Sirius," the werewolf said shortly. He turned back to Severus. "However, that's not why I'm calling. I just received an owl from Harry's aunt." Severus sat up abruptly.

"An owl from Petunia Dursley?" he said incredulously. Remus nodded.

"That was my reaction," he said, then held up the letter. "This is it, and it's rather worrying." He passed it through the fire and Severus took it, skimming the contents, then sitting back in his chair to re-read it, a stunned look on his face.

"Well," he said after a moment. "It seems I must revise my opinion of Lily's sister once again. And my opinion of Vernon Dursley has just dropped radically," he added dryly. "Not that it was very high to begin with."

"Harry sent the two of us owls to say that he'll be staying at Hogwarts for the rest of the summer," Remus added, ignoring Sirius's sarcastic, "What are you telling him for? It's not like he cares a whit."

"Yes, I will be retrieving him tomorrow morning after breakfast," Severus said, completely expressionless. A wicked idea occurred to him and he dropped his eyes to look up at Remus through his lashes. Sending his voice down to resonating levels, he said casually, "Albus happened to mention that he's received a petition with... rather a lot of signatures. To reinstate you as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor." Remus raised an eyebrow in surprise at the sudden change of topic, but his eyes flashed with the same mischeif Severus had seen when they were in school.

"Did he?" the werewolf said, equally as casual. Severus inclined his head in acknowledgement.

"I'm looking forward to... working with you again, Remy," he purred, fighting to keep a grin off his face at the amusement glittering in Remus's golden eyes and the completely flabbergasted look on Sirius Black's face.

"I'm sure it will be... enjoyable... for the both of us," Remus mused, the lids of his eyes dropping half-way as a slow, lazy smile slipping across his lips. Black made a choking noice, which both Severus and Remus outwardly ignored. However, Severus had to excersise every ounce of control he had when Remus, without moving his head, glanced over his shoulder, then rolled his eyes.

"Well, I'd best get back to the workroom," he said instead. "The new batch of Wolfsbane Potion is already... prepared, in anticipation of your arrival."

"You're too good to me, Sev," Remus cooed, crossing his eyes at Black's outraged exclamation. Severus nearly choked with laughter, but the fact that Black could see everything he was doing kept his amusement in check.

Hmmmm...

"Quid pro quo, Remy," Severus replied, allowing his face to soften into a fond expression, his lips curving upwards into a gentle smile. Remus blinked, surprised. The surprise turned to amusement as he looked over his shoulder and down, and through the fire, Severus heard the sound of a loud thud. Apparently he'd been correct; the sight of Severus Snape, the Greasy Git, smiling at Remus Lupin was enough to make Sirius Black pass out from shock.

The soft smile on Severus's face turned into a delightedly wicked grin. Remus looked up, amusement writ clear on his features. Severus met Remus's golden eyes with his own dark ones... and both of them burst into fits of snickering.

Severus was still chuckling quietly when he and Remus ended the call, and the fire went blank.

To be continued...