A/N: Yay for quick updates! Hope all of you have a wonderful week. Enjoy, and many thanks to Snapeswidow for helping me with Demetri.
Connections
So far, he had found several empty bedrooms, a kitchen where his parents were with Harrison making dinner for everyone, and various numbers of storerooms, but he hadn't found the room Aurora was in. He needed to apologize to her, to make things right again. Why did he always get like this? Why couldn't it just be perfect the first time around? Just once he'd like an easy time at something. He was tired of having to go through hell just to get a sliver of happiness. Hadn't his luck changed lately?
Walking into yet another room, Severus almost immediately regretted it when he saw the room's only occupant sitting at a table. It wasn't Aurora unfortunately, but the other dark-haired witch.
Demetri looked up from the book she was reading and raised an eyebrow at him the moment the door opened. "It's not polite to stare, Severus," she joked.
His brows knit together briefly before he inclined his head. "I apologize. I wasn't aware you were in here." He turned to leave to move on.
"Where else would I be?" she asked before sighing as he turned. She hooked the heel of her boot on the chair opposite hers then, pushing it out from the table. "You don't have to apologize; nor do you have to leave. Sit."
He kept his back to her and mumbled quietly, "You obviously haven't spoken with Aurora then."
"Why do you ask?"
He turned back finally and stared at her. "Oh no!" He raised his hands up. "I'm not that foolish."
She arched another dark brow. "I've known you for how long now?"
"A bit." He then glanced back to the door before his shoulders sagged in silent resignation. "Fine. Might as well upset you too while I'm at it since I've apologized to every other witch in this damned house already at least once."
She smirked as he took her bait. "I doubt you can tick me off any more than you did the first time we met, but if you wish to try, by all means." She gestured to the empty chair across from her.
He reluctantly sat down.
She leaned back, crossing her ankles under the table. "So how was your talk with Aurora?"
He winced and rubbed the back of his neck. There was no way the witch didn't know. He stared at her for a few more moments before he sighed. Maybe Aurora hadn't come to see her after all. But then where was she if she hadn't come to see Demetri? He turned back to the door. He had only explored a bit of the manor. What if she had found a secret room and was locked inside? Or she had left? He sighed and turned back. That was absurd. She could take care of herself. And she wasn't by any means a damsel in distress after all. She could handle herself . . . and him. He bit back a groan at his lewd thought and sighed heavily.
"I apologized . . . and then opened my mouth and it all went to hell like always. The end."
Demetri snorted. "It went to hell? You act like she ran screaming from the Manor, which I know she hasn't." She leaned forward, clasping her hands in front of her on the table. "You are in love with a woman you barely know, your memories and emotions are warring with each other, and yet you think everything will be easy? I'd worry if you didn't screw something up, Severus."
"You didn't see her when she left," he replied quietly.
"No, I didn't. "
He sighed heavily again, running a hand through his hair. "It was all going so well before then. And then she had to make a comment insinuating I can't cast Light magic or that I'm naturally Dark or whatever the hell she was trying to say." His earlier annoyance came out in his voice. He turned to her. "I should have chosen a different spell. I know that now. I mean, fuck!"
She furrowed her brow trying to understand what he was getting at and failed. "Did you explain it to her, the outcome of the spell? Or did you just let her go, assuming what she will from it?"
"Explain what? That my Patronus is still a goddamn doe for some reason, Demetri, when I don't give a flying fuck about that little redheaded, self-centered witch from my youth anymore? I said I was sorry, and she didn't want to hear it. At all. And I get it. I do. If the roles were reversed, I'd be furious and hurt just as much as she is."
"Gods, the two of you are so much alike. I swear the Fates put you two together to see who would strangle the other first." Demetri shook her head in disbelief. It was positively laughable. Honestly. "And you just let her go? Let her insecurity eat away at her? A simple sorry won't make her understand, Severus, no matter how much she says it does. You said yourself, after all, if the role were reversed, you'd be just as mad, just as hurt. Well, what would you want in this situation? A simple apology or an explanation?"
"What would I want?" He scoffed, shaking his head. "A year ago, I didn't have these thoughts. These... I was ..." He sighed, letting his head fall forward as the words stopped. "You're right. I am at war with myself. It's constant now. I—she won't listen, Demetri! She won't!" He nearly shouted at her as his turbulent emotions took over again. "And explain? Explain what? That I love her? A woman I know nothing about, that I can't even fucking talk around, be around?" He tugged on his hair and growled. "I don't understand how he could function like this. Be around her. She's worse than Amortentia! Of course I was the idiot who had to kiss her," he snarkily drawled. "Because I just had to know. Well, isn't that fucking perfect? Now I can't even be around her without—and what was she thinking? She knows, Demetri! She knows!" He was ranting. Even he could tell that. He'd be surprised if she understood anything he had just said. He didn't even understand it all, and he was the one who had said all of it.
"And did she reject you? Laugh at you?" Demetri cocked her head.
He blinked, seemingly coming back to himself. Laugh at him? "What? When?"
"When you kissed her, Severus?" Demetri had to refrain from rolling her eyes. "Aurora cares for you. That I can assure you. She wouldn't be doing what she's doing, wouldn't have left you without someone to befriend who wouldn't judge you because of that tattoo on your left arm and what it meant, if she didn't care." She sighed and leaned closer to him before continuing "I will hex you if you tell her I told you this, but Aurora has been in love with you for years. She always talked about you, whether it a story from Hogwarts or a trinket she saw in a shop that reminded her of you. She never acted on those feelings, though, because she didn't think you would receive them well." Which judging by his current state of mind was a blessing clearly.
"She did?" He stared at Demetri with a slow smile spreading across his face. A moment later, though, he growled, tugging on his long hair again. "Damn it! No, Demetri! No! Gah! I'm going to need therapy for this! You can't say things like that. It just it makes this worse! Do you understand? I've never—my first girl I liked—oh, why am I telling you this?" He then growled. "Because I'm pathetic and don't have any other friends obviously," he mumbled to himself before he continued. "Love for me is obsessive, dangerous, and... I'm going mad. Like—I don't know—Dumbledore mad!"
Demetri grabbed his wrists and removed his hands from his hair, placing them flat on the table without letting them go. "You think you can't love her because of what happened in your past? If everyone thought like that, the world would be miserable. Aurora isn't Lily, Severus, and I doubt you are the same man you were in school. Love isn't supposed to be easy." She squeezed his wrists to get his attention. "And don t ever compare yourself to Dumbledore. My father told me stories of the 'Great leader of the Light' that would make the Dark Lord cringe."
"Of course Aurora's not Lily. That's absurd," he grumbled. "She's a much better kisser than Evans obviously." He then frowned, glancing to where she held his wrists. "Calm and collected. That used to be me. I could lie easily. Pretend I didn't have a heart. It didn't hurt as much, you know? But around her, I, I can't. Think, breathe, you name it. I just can't." He closed his eyes.
"That, my dear friend, is what being in love is." She patted his hands before she let them go.
"Well, I hate it," he groused, not meaning his words in the slightest.
She laughed at the juvenile whine to his voice. "It will get better. Once the two of you stop trying to save each other's feelings and just admit the truth."
This time he allowed his head to fall all the way forward and slam against the table. The brief flicker of pain was a welcome sight, so he pulled back up and let it drop again.
Demetri shook her head and slipped her hand back across the table to keep his forehead from hitting the hard surface a third time. "Giving yourself a concussion isn't gonna help matters."
He paused and glanced at her. "Says you." He then sighed heavily. "How do I fix this, Demetri?"
"Talk with her, not at her, but with her. Let her know how you feel, explain things, and for Circe's sake don t let her get away with 'I know' and 'It's all right.' Let her know you want to know how she feels and that you won't scoff at her or reject her."
"Talk?" He stared at her before he scoffed. "I realize you're a woman, but, witch, when I look at her all I can think about right now is snogging the hell out of her, holding her, and you know, other things." Why had he told her that? He shouldn't have told her that. He really shouldn't have.
"I never said you two couldn't shag like bunnies afterwards, but talking things out, knowing where each other stand helps . . . even if it's after you two release all these years of pent up frustration."
"Her frustration. I only have a year of this, thank Merlin." He then rubbed the back of his neck as a thought occurred to him. "Demetri?" He waited until she was looking at him again. "I couldn't help, but notice certain things." He rubbed at the back of his neck again and sighed. "I am correct to assume you're a pureblood, being related to Morgana, does that mean you're related to Aurora then?" He tried not to wince as he waited. "If so, how?"
She shrugged. "Merlin put a curse on my family, well on Morgana's blood line, that made it so every child born would be male. So, imagine my father's surprise when my parents were told they were having a girl." Demetri smirked. "Now imagine there being two girls instead of just little ol' me?" She pushed ahead, watching his eyes grow. "Fearing that my twin and me would be reincarnation of dear old Morgana, Dad gave one baby away and kept me. He moved us to a place where magical folk and Muggle literally lived side by side to curb my darker side. It wasn't until I met Aurora at university that we realized we were twins separated at birth."
He stared at her, his mouth slightly opened. They were... When he started to cough and wheeze a few moments later, he realized he had stopped breathing. "What?" They couldn't be... "Twins?"
She blinked owlishly at him trying to hold back her laughter. "Sev..." was all she managed before giggling uncontrollably. Wiping tears from her eyes as she got her laughter under control, she shook her head. "I'm sorry. I had to. You sounded so sincere." She softly laughed. "No we aren't twins or closely related. We may be somewhere along the family tree, but I've never looked that far back."
He glared at her, feeling his familiar annoyance returning as he stood. Why did both think it was funny to tease him like that? "Good. Because if you were twins, she's clearly the prettier one!"
"Oh you slay me." She laughed again. "I can always tell Sin that you've been perving on the two of us so much to see 'similarities.'
He took a step towards her with his eyes flashing before he growled. "Consider yourself lucky."
She raised an eyebrow, not intimidated in the least. "What, that I'm not a twin or that you compare me and Aurora?"
"I do no such thing!" he snapped, glaring at her.
She giggled. "Shall I grab the Pensive and replay what you just said then?"
He growled, clenching his jaw.
Demetri rolled her eyes and patted him on the cheek. "You're adorable when you're angry. "
He flinched slightly from her touch before he glanced away. "Lovely."
"I'm sorry. Your question was just so random, and I couldn't help but scare the piss out of you."
He frowned but said nothing again.
"I can see where the question came from, though. You aren't the only one to notice. We once had a professor who couldn't tell us apart in class and just revered to us as you."
He glanced at her and snorted. "Interesting."
She shrugged. "I am taller than Sin, though, and my eyes are blue. I'm left handed, and my hair is bluer black than her solid black."
"I suppose." He then moved on to another topic. "What do you know about her mother then?"
Demetri bit her lip and narrowed her eyes as she thought. "Only that she's a healer."
He nodded. "She—her mother was brought up, and it seemed a contentious relationship if ever there is one. I thought at first she was angry with me, but..." He then glanced at her. "She truly has talked about me? Went on and kept things?"
"She rarely spoke of her family. Neither of us did actually. But she did talk about you. For hours and hours some nights." She smirked. "I found an old box that had copies of Christmas cards she had sent you and clippings from the paper when they announced the new Masters in England as well as an announcement when you were hired at Hogwarts."
He jerked back slightly. "What?"
She shrugged. "All females do it, Severus. I had one when I was fourteen filled with pictures I'd taken of a boy I liked."
"No. Not that." He then stood up and walked over to the window. He tried to think back on his past. There was something there, but he couldn't remember it. Why couldn't he recall it? It was something he received in the post shortly after he was announced as Potions Master. His eyes then widened, and he whirled around.
Demetri was startled when he turned abruptly. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I just I have to go and see her. Thank you for, you know, calming me down again."
"You're welcome, Severus. Expect my therapy bill in the mail," she joked as she got to her feet. There was something strange about the way his mood had shifted earlier, as if something had just dawned on him. "You will share with the rest of the class later, yeah?"
"If I'm right," he stated offhandedly. "Now, where would she be? I've already checked the downstairs rooms and half of these."
"She's in the library. She figured that was the last place you'd look for her."
"The library?" He snorted, a thought springing to his mind before he cleared his throat and tugged on his sleeve. He glanced at Demetri sideways, hoping he hadn't flushed at that particular thought. He surely would need to get these thoughts under control again if he hoped to gain any bit of control again. "Thank you, Demetri."
"You're welcome."
He turned to leave, stopping when she called back to him.
"Just please, you know, don't shag in the library. Some of us would like to read every now and then while we're stuck here, and it's just not something we want to come across."
His eyes narrowed on her before he opened his mouth a few times. No. He finally decided to say nothing and left the room a few moments later, heading to where Demetri had said Aurora was. He wasn't going to take her bait again.
Sure enough, he found her right where Demetri said she was. He paused in the entryway of the round room full of bookcases that spanned top to floor all the way around and watched Aurora. She leaned across the ladder and was attempting to grab a book on the far side of a shelf. He thought about alerting her to his presence, but decided against it. The last thing he needed was for her to slip from the ladder and injure herself severely. When she grabbed the book a moment later and was back safely on the ladder and slowly climbed down, he decided now he'd alert her.
"Demetri said I'd find you here," he started, noticing her shoulders hunch up instantly.
"Did she now?" Aurora replied a moment later. "Well, you found me. Congratulations." She then turned away from him to grab the stack of books she had set off to the side.
This wasn't going well, but he trudged forward. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have cast that spell." When she paused and turned to him, he continued. "It was the Lightest spell I could think of, though, at the time. I didn't mean to upset you. I give you my word."
"All right." She shrugged and headed towards him with her stack of books. When she tried to move past him, though, he didn't move. "Do you mind?"
"Please? Could you just talk about this?"
"What's to talk about, Severus? You still are hung up on Evans. I'm just here."
"Is that what you think? That our kiss earlier was me trying to pretend you were her?"
She opened her mouth before she firmly snapped it shut, thinking better on her words. "Please, Severus. Just let me get passed."
"No. Not until we talk about this." She wasn't listening, just as he knew she wouldn't. He was half-tempted to stick her to one of the chairs in the room.
"Severus," she said again, her voice wavering slightly. "Please?"
"I didn't mean to upset you, hurt you like that. I'm sorry that I did. But you're wrong, though." He slowly grabbed her upper arms, so she didn't run. "I don't know why it's still a doe. I truly don't. Evans isn't that strong in my mind anymore. She hasn't been for almost a year."
"If you so much as tell me that's because of me, I'm going to break your nose," she warned.
"No. It's not because of that. It's because I read her letter she sent me. She looked at me and only saw the darkness. In her mind, I was nothing more than a murderous, bigoted coward regardless of the fact I have never killed anyone in my life."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"You don't see that in me, Aurora. I don't know why, but you don't. You see the good, small that it is in me. You don't believe I'm a lost cause as she did." She turned her head away from him. "I'm sorry I hurt you."
"It's fine."
"No. It's not, though." He gently pushed her chin so she'd look at him again. "It's really not fine. You've been nothing but kind to me, and I return your kindness with pain and hurt."
She scoffed and shook her head. "You think this is easy for me, Severus? Because it's not. It really isn't." She turned away again. "There are so many things that could happen now. So many variables we haven't even considered. And a part of me just wants to say screw it and be with you. Another part of me knows that's the worst idea ever because if I lose you, then . . ."
"You're not going to lose me. I'm not going anywhere."
"You say that now, but these people, they can disrupt the timeline, Severus. Do you understand that? They can make it so I was never born. Make it so I died long ago. That we never met. I could go on, but I think you see what I'm saying."
"They could certainly try, but they don't have all the pieces."
"Neither do we," she pointed out, frowning at him.
"Actually, we do. We just haven't had time to put them all together."
"What? I don't follow."
"Demetri said you collected every news article concerning me, my getting my Potions mastery, accepting the position at Hogwarts, etc."
"Well, yeah, but what does that have anything to do with this?"
"What if you weren't the only one following me? What if someone else was too?"
"What?" Her eyes narrowed even more. "I still don't get it."
"They want me to choose the darkness, to embrace it. Right?"
"Yeah."
"So, theoretically, they'd know I took the Dark Mark when I turned seventeen, correct?" She nodded slowly. "Yet only a few people knew that. You, Regulus, Albus, the Dark Lord, and a few of his Inner Circle members at the time."
"Okay, but we're not dealing with regular people, Severus. These people after you are likely Unspeakables or something."
"And they were alerted to me after my Future self came back."
"What are you saying?"
"They, or rather one of them, said that they had a good thing going on before my future self came back and destroyed that timeline. Now, think about it. What did the Ministry have going on?"
"I don't know. I haven't been in England for a few years now."
"The war ended with the Dark Lord's disappearance at the Potter's house last October. Since then the Ministry has been rounding people up, sentencing them to Azkaban with very little judicial oversight and care frankly as to whom it hurts."
"Okay. But what does that have to do with you?"
"We learned this past year several things about my mother's side of the family."
"Severus, stop. Wait. What does any of this have to do with you? You're not making sense."
"Please. Just indulge me for a moment. It will. I promise." When she tipped her head forward, he continued. "After I was born, a descendant of the Gaunt family approached my maternal grandparents and stated he'd return the Prince family name if they'd accept his marrying my mother. They agreed, and Roger, my stepfather, first entered the picture."
"All right. So, what? This member of the Gaunt family is the reason this is happening?"
"It took me a moment to realize it, but the Dark Lord was a descendant of the Gaunt family, Aurora." He trudged forward. "My parents were taken from me; my dad by house arrest after a bombing he was blamed for and my mother by Roger and later the Dark Lord. All that was done so I would hate Muggles easier. These people, the ones after me, that want me on this darker path, they've been at it for a very long time."
"I don't follow."
"My future self, he told me about Dumbledore's manipulations, showed me Evans wasn't the one I should long for, and hinted at you instead. Now, he stated it was to make my life better, to make the boy's life better as well. He could very well have kept it to himself about these people, but I don't think he knew about them, that he had ever met them, which means whatever he did in his timeline—he had already chosen that darker path at one time and they didn't see a need to interfere. However, I haven't. Do you understand?"
"No."
He snorted. "I don't begin to assume what his life was like, but judging by what I saw from him, he had been a wreck after Evans's death. He didn't get over her as I have. He likely embraced the darkness to keep the pain he felt deep inside at bay." He noticed her nodding as she followed his line of logic. "You asked me earlier if I had any issue casting Light magic. I showed you I didn't. But it hit me later when I was talking to Demetri that while I don't have issues casting it, dark spells are easier for me to cast. I'm sadly used to the darkness, Aurora, as was he."
"But we're not naturally predisposed to Light or Darkness, though. That's absurd."
"It is absurd I agree, but these people seem to think it's not for some reason. Nevins, if it was really him, stated they weren't from the Time room. So, naturally, they had to be from another."
"Hall of Prophecy then?" she offered with a shrug.
"Either that or Death," he stated. "They're the one ones that make sense. And it's clear they're Unspeakables after all, as other Aurors wouldn't be bothered with trivial things as time travel."
"Okay, so they're from either Hall of Prophecy or the Death room. How does that help us?"
"My Future self coming back in time disrupted the timeline severely because loads of events were changed in a short amount of time. He chose carefully what to alter and what not to, though. What if his coming back, his method of returning, meant he reappeared in the Time room?"
"That'd make the most sense since there'd be quite a lot of Time Turners. And to do this, come back this far, he had to need a lot of them to go back that far in his past."
"Precisely. That'd require loads of magic, wouldn't it?"
"Probably, yeah. Why?"
"So, where would all the energy dissipate to when he reappeared in the past Time room?"
She shrugged. "Probably to something that requires a lot—Oh." Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped slightly. "Wait. Kingsley always talked about a structure in the Death Room. He said the one time he was there he heard voices, one that sounded like his dead grandmother. Called it the Veil, I think." She then shook her head. "You think the energy went to that?"
"Yes. It likely sent of a surge of energy."
"Which made anyone in the Death room hear the voices louder than before. But they'd surely just leave, wouldn't they?"
"Unless they couldn't. I hardly know anything about those rooms."
"Yeah. So, if we're going to assume that theory is correct, how does that help us? I mean, operating on the theory the dead had whispered in the ears of the people who were in the room at the time, why then are they so dead-set on you becoming dark?"
"Well, that's easy," a voice drawled from a portrait above them. Their heads whipped up to see a severe-looking wizard staring down at them. "It's not the dead whispering through the Veil anymore."
"What?"
"Far be it from me, a long-dead wizard in a portrait left abandoned for centuries, but it sounds like the Veil has become a gateway to Dark Magic or darkness or whatever you kids call it these days."
"Um . . ." Aurora glanced at Severus who stared back at her. "Who are you?"
"Me?" The wizard shrugged in his portrait. "Lord Ashmore." When their eyes widened, he sighed exasperatedly. "Not that idiot son of mine, Lorian. Merlin! Everyone thinks I'm him. Had it been up to me, I'd have killed the little bastard long ago. I didn't even want children, I'll have you know." He held up a finger. "But, unfortunately, my wife did, and so we extended the bloodline and created the little shit that ruined our good name. I'm Lord Marcus Ashmore."
When Severus heard Aurora's laughs next him, he glanced at her and raised a brow. While he'd admit this wizard did seem to have a sense of humor he could appreciate, it hardly warranted her doubling over and giggling like a Hufflepuff.
"He sounds just like you," she said through fits of laughter.
Severus frowned.
"Well, yes, dear, he is after all my great-great grandson. I would hope he'd sound a bit like me," the wizard stated with an eyeroll.
Brushing aside Aurora's giddiness, Severus decided not to waste any more time. "Do you recall what happened here then? Between my great-grandfather and great-grandmother?" He caught the other wizard's brief look of pain before the man nodded in his portrait.
"I do. The question is, do you want to know?"
"Yes. Please," Severus replied, holding the man's kind blue eyes—his father's eyes he noticed a few seconds later.
"As you wish." The man sighed heavily, steepling his fingers in front of his face. "We had arranged Lorian's marriage with Emma, your great-grandmother. She was from a respectable family, Selwyn in fact, and we had hoped, all of us, she'd be able to help him become a better man, calm him in other words. We soon learned, though, we had made a grave mistake. Her family and ours had tried to absolve the marriage, but he took her away from all of us. The Aurors didn't find them."
Severus frowned as he listened. A part of him wished he had asked his father to join them, but he needed to know. He'd inform his dad later.
"And when they returned several months later, she was pregnant with Ismerelda, your grandmother. Lorian seemed happier, calmer than we had ever seen, and Emma—well, she seemed quiet, resigned, but alive. We, of course, didn't learn of the circumstances for the pregnancy until much later when Emma died in childbirth with Caleb. So, we turned a blind eye to her, not wanting to see that he was still hurting her behind closed doors." The man sighed heavily. "We had thought after Emma had passed that there would be some . . . hint of goodness in him that'd appear. There wasn't, though. Only darkness and evil. My wife and I finally had enough when we saw what Lorian had done to Caleb that night. We contacted the Aurors, left it up to them to deal with the mess we created."
"So, your son did die at the hands of the Aurors then?"
"Yes, and my grandson Caleb died at that hands of his father. My wife and I, we came to an arrangement with the Aurors. To hide Ismerelda away and give her a chance to live a normal life. To leave the Ashmore name behind her. We vowed never to speak of it again. My wife and I died a few years after we gave her away. We should have raised her, but instead we abandoned her. We were so ashamed of what our son had done we spread lies about him. The Aurors didn't refute it as we had provided most of our wealth to them. And so, the loving Lord Ashmore story was created."
Severus closed his eyes and sighed. There it was. The tragic story of his father's family. At least the Wizarding side of it.
"You were right earlier, Severus," the wizard declared from his portrait. "There is someone who has been watching you."
His eyes darted upwards back to the wizard. "What? How do you know this?" Both of his great-great grandparents would have been dead by the time he was born. So, what the man was saying didn't make any sense. "Who was watching me?"
"The Selwyn family. They didn't believe the story, but there was enough respect between our two families for them not to say so in public."
"How do you know they were watching me?"
"I'm a magic portrait, my dear great-great grandson," the wizard drawled. "The moment you and your father entered this manor, you became connected with us. Your memories became a part of us." He shrugged a moment later. "So, no, it wasn't this beautiful witch who sent you the congratulations when you received your position at Hogwarts. It was a matter of fact a Selwyn."