They Didn't Know We Were Seeds
While walking up the staircase to the owlery, Severus complains to Lily, "This is the third letter you've sent this week."
His friend grins. "'Tuney keeps writing back."
He pulls his robes closer to shake off the chill of the tower as he asks, "How much can she possibly have to say to you?"
"Quite a bit, actually. She's just written about how three of Cambridge's colleges are now admitting women. She seems rather excited about it."
Severus lifts an eyebrow in disbelief. From what he'd heard about Petunia over the years, she was a homemaker and nothing more. "She wants to go to Cambridge?"
"Sort of," Lily replies. Pursing her lips, she remarks, "I think it's more like she's excited about the type of men she could meet there. I know she wants more than anything to be a proper wife and mum. If she goes to Cambridge, or somewhere like it, she'll meet countless men who could become well-to-do." Lily cocks her head thoughtfully. "She never managed to make it to a university in our first lifetime, but it seems she still got what she wanted out of life."
Severus snorts. "At what price? She married a whale."
Lily's expression turns into one of bemusement. "You met Vernon?"
"Well–" Severus starts, only to stop at the sound of a muffled sob. He puts his arm out to keep Lily from stepping into the owlery itself.
He then shares a look with Lily, who mouths, 'Poor lamb!'
Severus almost rolls his eyes in response, he doesn't agree. Crying in the owlery feels like a grab for attention to him. Chances are it's a spoiled, homesick firstie and he says as such.
Lily crinkles her nose. "It's October."
"Homesickness hits some children harder than others," Severus tells her, "especially if Hogwarts hasn't met the expectations they created."
She pushes past his arm. "All the more reason to go talk to them!"
Severus sighs, but doesn't object. As a professor, he's had to do the same once in a while. However, both skid to a halt only a few seconds after stepping into the owlery. In the left corner of the room, a dark-haired Slytherin boy has his back to them and is kneeling on the owlery's dropping-coated floor. Severus begins to feel uneasy. He has a fairly good idea who this boy is.
Gesturing for Lily to just stay, because the last thing this boy is going to want is a Gryffindor girl seeing him right now, Severus approaches him. "Montague?" he calls quietly.
Sage Montague's head swivels around, eyes wet and expression devastated. "Hecate's dead."
Severus glances to the bundle of feathers in the boy's arms. It's a short-eared owl with what appears to be a broken neck if how its head hangs over Montague's arm is any indication. 'It's begun again,' Severus thinks darkly while he uncaringly drops to his knees beside Montague. "Did you find her like this?" he questions.
Montague nods. "Hecate was my father's and all I had left of him…"
He winces a little. He knows Montague's story (as much as he likes to pretend he doesn't). Montague's father had killed himself shortly before Sage started Hogwarts, leaving his two sons (Sage and an older one who's a seventh year this year) orphaned and his wife a widow. He also remembers the first time Montague's owl was murdered. After that, Montague was little more than a ghost for the rest of their Hogwarts career together. Severus also thinks Sage may have killed himself too at some point during the First War. He never did try and clarify that bit of gossip.
What's even more important than Montague's history right now, however, is the knowledge that his owl was only the first in a long line of familiar deaths and disappearances. Thankfully, (or, suspiciously, depending on how you look at it) the familiar mystery was over by the time Severus began to teach at Hogwarts. Suddenly, Lily appears on Montague's right. "We should take Hecate to the professors. They need to know something killed it," she explains.
Wiping at his eyes with his sleeve, Montague nods. "Alright."
-O-
They sit in desks that are side-by-side in their private classroom a little less than an hour later. They are quiet, both lost to their own contemplations. Professor McGonagall had been downright horrified when he, Lily, and Montague showed up with the dead owl. She'd immediately called for the Headmaster and started speculating on the potential causes for the broken neck right in front of them. Lily ended up having the sense to clear her throat and recapture their attention once Montague started to turn a bit green as the theories became more and more gruesome. When the adults realized what was happening, Dumbledore had called for a house elf to dispose of the owl and suggested Severus and Lily take Montague to the infirmary for a calming draught. Under most circumstances, Severus would have balked at such an idea. Calming Draughts are not for things as inane as the death of an animal. Yet, to Montague, that damn owl had been far more than an animal.
In the end, they took the Headmaster up on his suggestion and then went to sequester themselves in their classroom to process what happened. He chances a look at Lily, her face is pale; her mouth a solemn line that masks the fact it's more often shaped in the upward curve of a private smile. Severus is quite certain she has come to the same conclusion on things he has by this time, however. He murmurs, "His owl was the first, I think."
"That's what I thought," Lily replies, sounding miserable.
He turns his head to look at her better. "I have some people in mind who may have done it."
Lily seems slightly surprised. Why, he doesn't know. Severus spent so much of his life gathering intel on others it would be strange if he didn't have a few suspects already. "You do?" she asks.
He nods. "Yes."
-o-O-o-
"Ah! There you are!" Narcissa exclaims at his entrance into their common room.
Some other students glance his way. A couple of them frown. They don't understand Narcissa's sudden interest in him and he's quite sure a few are speculating he cast some kind of spell on her – they all know he has spells none of them have ever seen or read about before, after all. Reluctantly, he approaches her.
"Yes?" he asks warily.
She holds up a letter. "Lucius has asked about you," she says, eyes alight with amusement.
That gets Severus's attention. "Has he?" he says, trying to take the letter from the teenager.
Narcissa pulls it out of his reach (he can't wait for the growth spurt he'll have when he's fourteen). "He asked if you were still a dour little know-it-all."
Severus rolls his eyes. "Of course he did," he mutters. It's just like him to insult someone to try and hide he is interested in them.
"Are you?" Narcissa asks, eyes crinkling with silent laughter.
He sneers. "No, I've become a happy idiot since he graduated!"
Narcissa chuckles aloud and puts a hand on his shoulder and guides him away from the middle of the common room, where most of their housemates have congregated. Once they are at a little table away from the rest, she sits them down and talks a while more about what else Lucius has written. Finally, that tapers off and she asks, "Have you spoken to Sirius?"
"Yes," Severus says.
Narcissa stares at him, silently urging him on.
He settles a little more comfortably in his chair, crossing his arms as he thinks about how to explain what Sirius needs from Narcissa to have him trust her. "He's afraid if he talks with you, you'll tell his parents, or your parents, the less flattering things he says."
"I won't."
Severus eyes her. "How does he know that? What are you going to do to make him believe that?"
Narcissa frowns. "I could talk first?" she offers. "After I've said what I have to say, he can decide if he wants to talk back or not."
"That may work," Severus replies. And if it doesn't, he'll offer a more drastic suggestion to the cousins. In their case, Severus thinks an unbreakable vow may be a viable option. He knows Narcissa, he knows she really wants to have a relationship with her cousin – especially if it means he won't turn into another Andromeda. An unbreakable vow may end in death if broken, but if they made the vow carefully enough, the chances of Narcissa dying would be next to none.
How did you like the chapter? The introduction to the familiar death/disappearance mystery? Narcissa and Severus?
Thank you a million for reading!