They Didn't Know We Were Seeds
Petunia answers the door. Her hair is feathered and she wears a red turtleneck paired with what looks to be a new plaid mini skirt. He just barely stops himself from raising an eyebrow. He doubts that Mr. Evans is pleased with it. He wonders how Mrs. Evans managed to console him through one of his daughter's first ventures into the wardrobe of a modern woman. Petunia crosses her arms and frowns at him after a moment of silence. "Why are you here?" she demands, eyes flickering to Demitri hovering not far behind Severus. "Is something wrong? Uncle John's visiting from Australia and Mummy will have an absolute fit if you're here for some silly reason like dropping off a gift."
That explains Petunia's outfit. Lily had told him a couple of times while they were young she spent most Christmas days in her jimjams since her family had no close family to visit and they went to mass on Christmas Eve. "Mum's in a coma," Severus replies. "We're not sure if she'll make it. I just wanted… Can I talk to her for a minute?"
Petunia's expression takes on a slightly wide-eyed look as she nods. "Let me tell Dad and I'll send Lily out."
She steps back and closes the door.
"Lying are we?" Demitri asks.
Severus does not look back. "No. That is a summarized version of what the healers have told us."
He snorts.
The door swings open once more. Lily, dressed in a flowy green dress, says, "Sev!" Then, she notices Demitri and frowns. "Sev?" she says again, this time with a questioning lift to her words.
"You might want to step out and close the door," he advises.
Uneasily, Lily does so. Once done, she asks, "What's going on?"
"Mum is in a coma," he starts.
Her eyes grow to twice their size and Lily starts, "Oh, Severus! I—"
He puts up a hand to stop her. Then, Severus points to Demitri behind him. "He did it," he tells Lily, "it was to stop Mum from ruining Boyd's wedding."
Lily's face turns into one of total incredulity and confusion. She purses her lips. "Explain."
And Severus does. Demitri tries to interject a couple of times, but when he does, both Lily and Severus glare at him. Severus, because he knows his grandfather doesn't like how he's making him look to Lily and that's not important right now, and Lily, because he's slowing down Severus's story. As understanding as her parents might be right now of Severus's situation, they aren't going to give her all of the time in the world to talk to Severus when there's an Uncle visiting from out of the country. They don't see the man enough for their daughter to be gone for hours on Christmas of all days.
When he's done, Severus finishes with, "I have an idea to stop Mum from doing something like this again. But to make it happen, I need my grandfather's assistance. For him to be able to help, he needs to know everything," Severus concludes.
She begins to drum her fingers along her thigh. "Can we trust him?" asks Lily.
"We have to. Mum could ruin the Montagues if we don't." He puts his hands out beseechingly. "They don't deserve that. Especially Sage. He could be good."
Her eyes soften a little. "No, they don't," she agrees. She sighs. "I suppose we always knew a day like this would come." She glances at Severus's grandfather. "I just wish it didn't have to be today and not him first."
"I can't agree more," Severus replies empathetically.
Lily pulls Severus into a hard and fast hug. "Send an owl when it's done so I can come to help you put an unbreakable vow in place," she hisses in his ear, much to his relief. Severus is relieved she understands that this demand of hers is best only shared with his ears for now. It would surely upset his grandfather and make him demand to know everything right now. When they are apart once more, she smiles as if she said nothing at all. "Good luck. Don't forget to write to me later, alright?"
"Of course," Severus answers. "Merry Christmas, by the way."
She laughs. "It's a shame I'd feel like a right bitch if I said the same to you." Opening the door to her home, she concludes, "Bye, Severus. If you can find the time, stop by before we have to go back to Hogwarts. Mum and Dad have been asking after you for a while."
"I'll try," he acquiesces.
When the door to Lily's home closes, Severus turns to his grandfather. "Before I tell you my plan to stop Mum from ruining the Montagues, there's something I need to tell you." He looks around. "But not here."
"Where then?" he demands. "Your cousin is going to be back at St. Mungo's in no time at all now."
He shrugs. "Let's go back to St. Mungo's now and wait for them. You and I can leave for somewhere more private when Aunt Vesta and Sage return."
His grandfather scowls, showing he's highly displeased with Severus's suggestion, but he does not fight it. For just like Severus, he wants a permanent solution to the problem with his mother. Severus is the only one with even an inkling of an idea that will last and leave his mother's mind more or less intact.
-o-O-o-
It's just as they are sitting down that Aunt Vesta and Sage return with a satchel of food and the presents they didn't have time to unwrap at home. Demitri and Severus accept the food handed to them and pick at it for a few minutes as Aunt Vesta nags Sage into divvying up the presents. Sage obviously doesn't appreciate it and Severus has to wonder if he didn't suggest they leave it at the manor.
It would be like him, Severus thinks, to want such a thing. His brother likely fretted it would upset Severus to celebrate in a hospital room while his mother lay in a coma just a few steps away. To show Sage he doesn't mind that they're eating and opening presents in front of his prone mother, he smiles at his brother. Severus also thanks him when he hands him a small, shiny silver-wrapped box.
Hesitantly, Sage smiles back and relaxes a little as he continues to hand off the gifts.
For the next hour, Severus takes his time opening the presents and thanking the Montague woman for her thoughtfulness. As he does so, he considers how to best tell his grandfather about his secret and how to prove it at the same time. Slowly, a decent course of action comes to him (and his grandfather grows more and more annoyed). When all of the presents are finished and he's eaten his fill of the food Aunt Vesta brought, Severus announces, "Demitri and I are going to pop by home."
"What do you mean you two are leaving?" Aunt Vesta cries upon them getting up from their seats. "We just finally settled in!"
Severus doesn't say anything and lets his grandfather handle their cousin. Thankfully, he does it well. "We'll be gone for hardly more than half an hour. Severus just wants to pick up a few things from your home."
Sage, who sits in the chair beside his mother, frowns. "You're taking him Uncle Demitri?"
"Yes," the old man replies in a clipped tone. "We can't very well expect your mother to keep ferrying you boys to your home and back, can we?"
The boy shrinks a little into his seat. Severus shoots a glare at his grandfather. Then, to assure his brother, says, "It's fine, Sage. I asked him to."
He makes a face at him but otherwise stays silent.
Aunt Vesta, who looks terribly exhausted, sighs heavily. "If it's really alright with you, Uncle Demitri…"
"I assure you it is."
She waves a hand. "Go," she tells them. "Please don't be too long. Eileen deserves to have us around her during her time of need."
Demitri reaches over and gives Aunt Vesta's shoulder a squeeze. "We won't," he promises.
-O-
The minute they step through the floo into the Montagues' kitchen, Uncle Demitiri summons a chair and pushes Severus into it. "Tell me now what your idea is."
Severus gets up and points at the chair he'd been shoved into just a moment before. "Out of the two of us, it's you who should take a seat."
The old man's nostrils flare with rage. Severus just crosses his arms and waits. After a tense minute, the man concedes and sits down. "Hand me your wand," Severus demands next.
His grandfather narrows his eyes but reluctantly does so. Severus casts a silent Muffliato charm on the room. He doubts Topper listens in on his masters and mistresses' conversations, but it is better safe than sorry in any case. When Demitri is sitting, Severus breathes in deeply before starting.
"I might be able to use a memory of my own to create a false one to replace Mum's memory of Dad's death." He goes on to explain, "It won't change that she spent the better part of the last year looking for his killer, but we can Obliviate the worst of it and perhaps, with the help of Aunt Vesta and everyone, else we can convince her grief simply caused her to block out most of the year or she spent it in bed."
"You will be able to create this false memory?" his grandfather asked after a moment. "You're fourteen. How can you possibly have the skill to do this?" tone taking on a baffled hue, he questioned, "Where does this memory you can manipulate come from?"
"Before I tell you, you deserve to know I will be writing Lily after we finish speaking for her to come and bind you into secrecy with an Unbreakable Vow," Severus tells his grandfather, both to warn him and to put off answering his question.
"How in Merlin's name is she going to get here? She's fourteen too and her family is a bunch of Muggles!"
Severus purses his lips. "She knows how to apparate."
"How?" Demitri demands, voice raising in volume.
Heart beating a war-drum anthem against his ribcage, Severus very quietly answers, "She and I lived before."
His grandfather stares at him. He looks as if he might be on the cusp of believing Severus is having a laugh at his expense or believing Severus is serious. Finally, he seems to settle on serious (thank Merlin) and he croaks, "What?"
"Before this life, we lived another one. Mine longer than Lily's but in the same… Universe, if you will. After our respective deaths, we woke up here, both of us eleven-years-old."
Obviously struggling to not only hear what Severus is saying but to understand it, Demitri then questions, "Were you the same people? This isn't some kind of reincarnation thing is it?"
"Yes, I am and always have been Severus and Lily, Lily. This is not a case of what you'd call traditional reincarnation," answers Severus.
Head in his hands Demitri lets go of decorum and groans. "Good Helga save us all… Why? Why would you two come back?"
Severus licks his lips. There's no right answer. "To do better," he says after a moment.
His grandfather looks up, blue eyes glittering angrily. "Better? Better at what?"
He can only shrug. "Living and helping others, I suppose."
"You suppose?"
Feeling a bit irritated at the old man's sneering tone, Severus spits, "It's not as if we chose to wake up here as children!"
This appears to surprise Demitri all over again. Confusion clouding his gaze once more, he mutters, "You… Didn't?"
"No." With a musing tone, he remarks to the old man, "We both died during moments that may have preceded the end of the world as we knew. Of course, in Lily's case, we know it didn't as I lived a long time after her death. But after my demise? It's a mystery as to whether the world we knew ended with me or if her son prevailed and defeated Voldemort once and for all."
His grandfather flinched at the name. Eyes big and shocked, he whispered, "The monster was there as well?"
Severus nods.
"Merlin!"
Quietly, he tells the old man, "We're going to defeat him this time. Lily and I. We don't have all the details for our plan put together quite yet, but I'm working on having a fool-proof method for destroying any of his Horcruxes we find on us at all times so when we finally confront him he will stay dead when we kill him."
Demitri's hand went to his chest. "He has Horcruxes?"
Severus swallows. His grandfather's reaction is unsettling and he wonders just how much the man knows about Voldemort right now. "A few, we believe at this time."
"I knew he was terrible, no, deplorable, but to know he's this… Evil! I've never been a man to believe in a god or even gods, but if I've ever felt more compelled to pray to one than right now I can't think of a time!" he exclaims.
As Severus watches the man quietly panic to himself over all of the information he's given him, he can't help but wonder why it is he believes so easily. "Why are you just accepting my words at face value?" Severus demands. "I wouldn't if I were in your place."
"When I was young, I knew a woman that once who met her four times great-niece. She was an Unspeakable – like Vesta's father – and during an experiment with a spell they were creating to use in lieu of Time-Turners, she ended up in the very far future. Funnily enough, the young lady was an Unspeakable herself. Anyway, it didn't pan out in the end. It was too unstable."
He shakes his head, a flicker of amusement dancing across his previously stricken face. "What I am trying to tell you with this is I've seen and heard a great deal in my time. What you say does not surprise me, as stranger things have occurred. What does is that you and your friend have no idea why you came back."
Severus still feels unsettled, but at least he can take relief in knowing that to an aged wizard his tale is not half as insane as it feels to him some days. "If you need no proof, is there anything you wish to know now about my other life?"
"You appear to know quite a bit about the monster that led your cousin astray. Why is that?"
He shifts uncomfortably on his feet. This is a question he wished to avoid with all his being. Unfortunately, it appears he will not be given the reprieve he wished for. "For a time, I was one of his followers. Then, I was a spy within his ranks for the group who resists him."
"A clever boy – man – like you followed him?" Demitri asks a note of surprise and disappointment in his words.
His hackles rise at the words. "Better witches and wizards fell for his words and promises. Voldemort is not a stupid man – and his insanity has yet to reach its full height as of right now. Few will realize just what kind of monster he is for some time."
"Of course, of course, I didn't—" the old man gives a sigh of pure frustration. "I am not upset with you. It simply saddens me that I could not sway you to see his words were lies." He looks up at Severus, for confirmation perhaps, as he goes on, "That is why you hate me so, isn't it? That I did not try harder to not only save your mother from her mistakes but you from your own. It was Boyd that brought you into his circle, was it not?"
Severus frowns in perplexment for a moment, but, then, it clicks. Demitri thinks he was a part of Severus's first life too. "You misunderstand," Severus says. "There is a reason I have another memory to use as a template for my father's death. In my first life, he was never murdered by Adam Parkinson. He killed himself with his poor lifestyle."
He has to look away as confusion overtakes his grandfather's face once more. "I never knew you before this lifetime. I hardly knew Sage, let alone Aunt Vesta. Boyd was an acquaintance at best, given we were both Death Eaters, and I taught his son at Hogwarts during the boy's time there."
"Then… How?"
"In my first life, I was never friends with Sage. I never came to live with Aunt Vesta and the rest of the Montagues. Lily was my only true friend and I was cordial with some other Slytherins, Rosier, Wilkes, and Mulciber, mostly. There were others, such as Lucius Malfoy, who acted as a patron of sorts for me to become a Death Eater. I lived with Mum and Dad on Spinner's End all my childhood and school years. Mother died when I was sixteen from a fall down the stairs while ill. And as I said, Dad managed to kill himself a short time later with his lifestyle."
Demitri frowns now. "Did I know you even existed?"
"Probably not. It's not as if Aunt Vesta knew I was family until I told her your name is the name of my grandfather according to my mother."
He rubs a hand across his face. "Merlin."
"It's that memory I have of my dad killing himself I want to alter to replace Mum's current one, you know."
Relief mixed with irritation crossed the old man's face. "We're running out of time, aren't we? Vesta will come looking for us if we don't return to St. Mungo's soon."
Severus nods. It's exactly what their cousin will do. "Yes, she will."
His grandfather points a finger at him. "Don't think this is done. I have hundreds, if not a thousand more questions for you."
"I wouldn't dream of it," replies Severus. He's not a dunderhead. "Shall I send word to Lily her assistance is needed now?"
Demitri settles back in his chair, fingers locking together in his lap. "Yes."
"Alright," Severus returns before walking over to the list paper Aunt Vesta keeps by the ice box and tearing a piece off to write on.
There we are! The plan for Eileen has been revealed! Someone knows Severus and Lily's secret! It's Demitri no less! What do you think of this chapter as a whole? Is there any part you enjoyed in particular?
In other news, I've started a Tumblr page! There, you can find things like fan art created by others for TDKWWS, excerpts from old drafts of TDKWWS that were removed/changed in the name of editing and improving the story, as well as some outtakes for stuff that just didn't fit into the story. Also, if you have any questions about TDKWWS or my other works, you can ask me stuff there! My username on Tumblr is: itslucyluna.
Thanks for reading :)
Edited: 09/20