They Didn't Know We Were Seeds

Severus doesn't let Rookwood go after her reveal. Instead, he insists she accompany him to find Lily and Cresswell so that they can discuss everything together as a group. The Hufflepuff scowls and looks as if she might disagree (loudly too). To combat her surliness Severus asks if she'd rather tell him her tale now, answer all of his questions, then do it all over again later with Cresswell and Lily. Rookwood's scowl harshens for a moment and then disappears entirely as she relents.

He's pleased by this and relieved to see that Rookwood posses some sensibility after all. He'd wondered, especially since she said she let herself be used as a conduit for whatever ritual or enchantment it was that brought them all back here. From her tantrum, it's evident coming back this far had never been a part of her plan— Or for them to be her help. Severus does not yet know Rookwood's full story, but he is willing to believe she let her emotions get the better of her after the battle – or perhaps after something happened to her son – and then let herself be taken advantage of by the witch who sent her here.

"Come on then," he says to her. "We'll get Lily first. You'll need to go up to her dorm for me, her bed is the third on the right."

Reluctantly, the dumpy girl falls into line behind Severus as they take a slightly roundabout path to the Gryffindor dorms to avoid professors and Filch patrolling the main corridors. When they reach the tower, he says the password to the Fat Lady and she lets them in. He can feel Rookwood's stare on him as they skirt around the edge of the common room, avoiding the few Gryffindor night owls quietly talking or finishing their last-minute essays in the dim candlelight in the process.

Severus resists the urge to sigh and explains, "Lily knows the Slytherin dorm's password in case of emergencies as well."

Rookwood's scrutinizing gaze doesn't change, though, she nods all the same. He points her in the direction of Lily's dorm. "Be quick. Careful too. There's always a chance a girl or two is awake still."

The Hufflepuff makes a noise in the back of her throat that sounds like annoyance, but does as he asks. Anxiously, Severus awaits Lily and her return. He keeps a wary eye on the Gryffindors just meters away, hoping that none will look his way or get up to go their dorm rooms. They will surely notice him then and he has no interest in trying to explain why he's in their common room— Or how he got in.

Thankfully, a minute later, Lily is descending the stairs two at a time with Rookwood bobbing in and out of view over her shoulder. The Gryffindor's eyes are wide and questioning as she comes to stand next to Severus. He snags her arm and glances pointedly at the portrait. He will tell Lily everything he knows once they are away from here. Guiding them out of the Gryffindor's common room, Severus swears when he sees the far too familiar glowing eyes of Mrs. Norris in the shadows outside of Gryffindor's Tower.

To Severus's surprise, Rookwood doesn't hesitate. She shoves past them and hisses, "Stupefy!"

Mrs. Norris yowls. Grabbing both of the girls, Severus hurries them away from the Fat Lady's Portrait and to crouch behind a suit of armor on the other side of the hallway. Not even a minute later, Filch appears. He calls for his cat and then begins to look in the shadows. It doesn't take him long at all to find Mrs. Norris. He lets out a particularly colorful stream of cuss words as he picks up his stunned familiar.

With renewed vigor, the middle-aged man begins to look around, searching for Mrs. Norris's attacker. Severus presses them further behind the suit of armor. It really isn't a good hiding place. But in the dark…

Thankfully, after a couple of more minutes, Filch begins to walk in the direction opposite of them, giving Severus, Lily, and Rookwood the chance to slip away and down an adjoining corridor without drawing the caretaker's attention to them. When they are about halfway to the Ravenclaw dorms, Lily murmurs, "That was close."

"Indeed," he replies.

Lily looks around him and to Rookwood, who walks on Severus's other side. "So?" she says. "Are you one of us?"

The Hufflepuff scoffs. "One of you? I'll have you know my family can trace our line back almost to the seventeenth century!"

Severus pinches the bridge of his nose while Lily gapes at the cantankerous girl. "Your deliberate obtuseness will win you no favor," Severus grinds out. Then, apologetically, he tells Lily, "Yes. She's the last of us." He looks at Rookwood, who's crossed her arms and is now refusing to look at either of them. "The first too, actually."

Lily makes a face of confusion at his remark, but doesn't ask for clarification. The Ravenclaw Tower is now in sight and it's time for Severus to climb the staircase and go collect Cresswell for them. Telling the girls to wait behind the base of the stairs, he hurries up the steps and waits for a riddle from the eagle doorknocker.

After a moment, it asks, "What weighs more: a pound of feathers or a pound of rocks?"

Severus considers the question for all of a moment. "They both weigh a pound. Neither one weighs more."

The door swings open. Severus steps in and just as he's going to sequester himself to the shadows so he can sneak into the fourth-year boy dorms, he notices a familiar dirty-blond head resting on a pair of long, thin arms at one of the Ravenclaw common room's many study tables. Taking out his wand, he shoots a very light stinging hex at the dozing Ravenclaw.

He bolts up from his seat and looks wildly around the room before his gaze lands on Severus. He doesn't even try to look contrite. Instead, Severus insistently waves him over. When Cresswell is next to him, he jerks his head in the direction of the door and doesn't wait for any kind of agreement before he heads in the direction of it. Thankfully, the Ravenclaw follows him without complaint. A moment later, when they step out of his dorms, Lily and Rookwood's faces pop out from behind the stairs and Cresswell understands. "That's Rookwood next to Lily, isn't it?"

"She's the last of us," Severus informs him.

Cresswell puts a hand on his forehead and sighs. "Bugger."

Severus won't dare say it, but it's a sentiment he agrees with. Bugger is right. Who knows what kind of mess having her for the last of them is going to lead to?

-O-

Rookwood makes a slow lap around their classroom, taking everything in with a curiously bemused expression. "How has no one ever discovered your classroom?"

"It's properly warded," replies Severus with a roll of his eyes. Shouldn't that be obvious to her? None of them are idiots who lack foresight and Severus, who'd once been a professor himself, knows how to keep nosy students and professors alike out of places he'd rather they not explore. "Now, are you going to sit down? We've gone nearly five years without an explanation and I don't know about Lily or Cresswell, but I don't want to see another sunrise without an understanding of how we came to be children again in the past."

"A different reality," interjects Lily.

He rolls his eyes. "Yes, alright, in a different reality."

The Hufflepuff sighs. Turning away from Severus's experiments, she then shuffles over to a desk a few rows away from all of them and takes a seat behind it. "Where should I start?" she asks. "At the battle?"

"If that's the best place to begin," he replies. "It did sound like from what you said earlier that the light won."

Her lips curl with displeasure. "That you did."

Lily, who's now taut like a bow waiting for release, asks, "Did Harry survive? Is he alive?"

"He did and he was when I… left," Rookwood replies. "Who knows if he is now, however. He was an Auror." Her smiles is hardly kind as she comments, "As we all know, they have a higher mortality rate than most witches and wizards."

Severus's friend sinks into her seat, her hand over mouth. Tears spill silently from her eyes and Severus reaches over to squeeze her free hand. She lets her hand fall away from her mouth to give him a wobbly smile. He returns it. Severus knows this is something that has been wearing at Lily, not knowing if her son survived. Now she knows he not only made it out of the battle alive, but that he's an Auror too.

"Don't suppose you know anything about my wife or boys, do you?" asks Cresswell, voice rough.

Rookwood stares at him blankly. "Should I… Hmm, what's your name? Cuthbert?" she returns.

Severus winces. He holds little sympathy for Cresswell most days, but even Severus can't deny such a cold answer is a hex below the belt. As a parent herself, surely Rookwood could have replied with a little more care and sympathy.

"It's Cresswell," croaks the Ravenclaw before he turns his head to surreptitiously wipe his eyes with his thumb.

Quietly, in way of retaliation for her callousness, Severus mutters, "She knows your name. Rookwood is just being a cunt."

The girl's dark eyes smolder like hot coal at his insult. He can't say he cares. Instead, he claps a hand on Cresswell's shoulder as he gets to his feet. Once standing, he walks a little closer to her and says, "You mentioned a witch sent you – and us – here by using you as a conduit. What, pray tell, were you a conduit for? A spell? Ritual?"

She squirms in her seat a moment. Then, quietly, she replies, "It was a ritual." She tilts her head forward, causing her curls to close around most of her face like a curtain. "The witch – Nuwa Lodgers – performed a ritual."

"Nuwa…" Cresswell mumbles. "Nuwa Lodgers…"

Severus ignores him in favor of asking, "What was the ritual supposed to do exactly?"

"Send me back so I could save Vince and my family!" she snaps. "I've said that to you already!"

He just barely stops himself from rolling his eyes. "Yes, but how?"

"She said my consciousness with all of my current memories and knowledge would be sent back to take over my past self's body so that I could make the corrections necessary to save Vince and help my family."

"How do we come into this?" questions Lily, finally joining Severus in the inquiry.

Rookwood shrugs her shoulders. "I don't… She said there were people she wanted to bring back to help me, but they were all dead already. You have to use some who's alive for the ritual to work."

Severus frowned. "She picked us?"

"I didn't know it was you all," the Hufflepuff grumbles. "It's not as if the stand-ins she used for you were terribly identifying."

He shares a glance with Lily. She looks just as shocked as he feels. "She had stand-ins? Others were involved in your ritual?"

"No, no," Rookwood huffs, "they were objects. A book, a ratty robe, and a ring."

Cresswell stops talking to himself. "A ring? What kind of ring?" he demands.

"I don't know. It was a gold band. Perhaps a wedding ring."

Severus looks at Cresswell. The lanky Ravenclaw is wringing his wand in a very fretful matter. It makes him wonder what exactly is going through the other's mind and if he's going to have to prod him to say or if he'll tell them himself in another minute or two. Even so, Severus can't help but ask, "Do you think it may have been yours?"

He drops his gaze to his laps. "It wouldn't be out of the question," he mumbles. "Surely Lily's wedding band had a diamond or two."

"It did," Lily agrees. "A diamond accented by a pair of garnet gems on either side."

"It wasn't your ring, then," Rookwood concludes. "It was easy to tell even from where I stood in the ritual's diamond it was just a band."

Lily nods. "Perhaps the robe was mine? I imagine if they weren't preserved after my death they would start to look a bit raggedy after nearly twenty years of just existing." She favors Severus with a teasing smile. "Unless your teaching salary could only afford you secondhand robes?"

He smirks back. "Being a professor may not be a path to wealth, but the pay is still quite generous— As it should be. Teenagers are shits."

She laughs and, for a moment, the worry on Cresswell's face lessens as he snorts his amusement at Severus's remark.

"Alright, so the ring belonged to Cresswell, the robe was mine, and the book was yours," Lily lists off. "And she used them to send us back with Rookwood…" She tilts her head. "Which is all well and good, but why us?"

Rookwood crosses her arms. "Why you indeed."

"Can you describe her? Nuwa?" inquires Cresswell.

This makes the Hufflepuff crinkle her nose. "She was quite scarred. It looked like a potion or some kind of blasting curse caught her in the face and then she let it heal the Muggle-way. So, I don't imagine describing her will do much good— She probably doesn't look like anyone you might remember."

Cresswell sneers at her. "I don't care what you think!" Abruptly on his feet and pointing his wand at her, he demands, "Just tell me what she looked like!"

"Dirk!" Lily decries. "Put your wand down!"

The Ravenclaw ignores her. Lily looks to Severus at this point, expression all but begging him to do something, but he too ignores her. Cresswell appears to Severus he might be near an epiphany surrounding this Nuwa and who she is. Severus himself is eager to know who she might be and what could have motivated her to help Rookwood and bring them all back here. Rookwood starts to go for her own wand, but Severus silently disarms her, leaving her defenseless.

If she tries to run or attack them, he has no qualms about stunning her and then digging through her mind in a far from gentle manner for the answers Cresswell seeks. A wide-eyed look of horror overcoming her, Rookwood wheezes, "I— I don't…"

"Don't what?" Cresswell demands.

She shakes. "She always wore her hood up! I never saw more than her face and hands!"

The Ravenclaw covers his face at the words. After a moment, he takes them away. There's a determined light to his hazel-hued eyes. "If I pointed out who I think they were to you here at Hogwarts, do you think you'd recognize them? Even if they aren't scarred and are just a girl?"

"Yes!" Rookwood answers, "I'm sure I could!"

Severus doesn't believe her. He thinks she's just trying to appease them so she can get away from Cresswell, but he doesn't say that. It won't help anything right now if he does. Instead, he asks Dirk, "Do you have an idea who this Nuwa is?"

He nods. "I think it could be Mei," he answers. "Nuwa Ledgers… You can rearrange all the letters and get my sons' names. Douglas and Wren." He runs a hand through his hair. "She could also do something like this. She was pretty high up in the Unspeakables and I'm sure she'd be able to get her hands on a tome that had a ritual that could send all our consciousnesses back in time."

The drumming of fingers on wood draws Severus's gaze back to Lily. Her brows are furrowed with perplexment and disgruntlement. "Why us, though? I can understand you in a way, you're her husband. But for me? Severus?"

"Snape here is easy," Rookwood proclaims. "He was a spy who fooled Voldemort for years. She probably thought you and Cresswell could do with someone who's so slippery to help survive the wars. Someone who could help end them faster too with his vast inside knowledge of the Lord and his Death Eaters."

"And me?" asks Lily. "Why me? What could she think I'd be good for? I'll fight, just like I did before, but I was just a soldier before Harry."

Cresswell grins. "Snape's a goddamn bastard. And you were his friend once. Since Snape turned out to be a hero for the light in the end, I bet she thought if you were here and he could show you that, you'd become mates again and help take his edge away or act as a middleman or something between me and him."

Lily chuckles. Smiling a little, she says, "What do you think, Sev? Does that sound probable to you?"

"It was what happened," he concedes grudgingly. "I probably would have killed Cresswell before now without you too."

She laughs once more. "Can you believe it? We're all here because Mei wanted Dirk to live, even if it wasn't in our old reality with her."

Cresswell starts to shake his head. "She did," he says, "But I… I think that's only a part of it. We always wanted to leave a better world for our boys, it was something we talked about. We hoped to get into politics once the Doug and Wren were done at Hogwarts. We wanted to change things, make it better, more welcoming to everyone— No matter where they came from or who their parents were." Eyes bright and awestruck, he looks out at all of them and says, "That's why she did it.

"We should have never had our kids in the world we lived in. It was no good. It tried to kill both of us and almost succeeded. Doug and Wren were nearly turned into orphans. She sent us back this far so we could fix things earlier. So our boys could be born in a world they'd never have to fear for our lives— Or their own. She wants them to be born and grow up in a place that's truly peaceful, not in the middle of a ceasefire that could and did break back into war the first moment it could."

Severus wants to protest, insist that surely Cresswell can't know if that's really why Wong sent them all here. Yet… Wong was his wife. If not him, who else would understand Wong's motivations? Certainly not him. Nor Lily or Rookwood. It's a hard potion to swallow, but Cresswell's explanation might be the closest they ever get to a true answer.

-o-O-o-

They don't leave the classroom with Rookwood vowing to give up her prejudiced ways or to help them defeat Voldemort, but she does promise not to get in their way. Severus thinks she's a bit afraid of the three of them. She's a very average witch and they are all greatly above average in their own ways. While her promise is a very satisfactory outcome to their meeting as far as Severus and Cresswell are concerned. Lily seems a little sad that Rookwood is so reluctant to engage further with the rest of their small group at a later date – even if it's just to talk more about what the future of their first home held – but she doesn't push.

For now, anyway. He doubts she'll be happy to leave Rookwood alone for much longer than the summer. Lily's gotten a taste for what her son's life is like and she's going to want more. It shouldn't be all that hard for Rookwood to give it to her either. Harry Potter was a favored topic of newspapers even before the boy came to Hogwarts. He can only imagine the types of stories they were publishing about him after the war.

Now that the mystery of Rookwood has been settled for the time being, Severus has to deal with his own problems. Which he is extremely unhappy about. So much so Sage picks up on it within a day of his outing Rookwood to the others. His brother doesn't bother with delicacy either when he confronts him.

"What rat's crawled up your shorts and died?" asks the boy as they are preparing for bed in the boys' bathroom together.

He looks at Sage's reflection in the mirror and scowls. Bending his head so he's centered over the sink, he spits out the toothpaste in his mouth and rinses off the bristles of his toothbrush before he answers. "Nothing."

Sage scoffs and continues with combing his damp hair.

"It's nothing, really. I can handle it on my own just fine."

Blue eyes take on a doubtful gleam. "Uh-huh."

He scowls back at his brother. "It's not as if I haven't handled him on my own before."

"Him?" Sage repeats with a small amount of alarm. His eyes start to widen as he realizes just who Severus is talking about. "You mean Great Uncle Demitri, don't you?"

Severus doesn't answer.

Sage turns to face him. "Why?" he asks. "He made you lose. If my grandfather had done that to me, I wouldn't want to ever see him again, let alone talk to him."

"It's not that I want to," explains Severus, "But that I have to." Buttoning up his pajama top, Severus turns his head to meet Sage's gaze. "Aunt Vesta will be upset that he purposefully plotted my loss, but not for long." He tries for a smirk. "You mother is wonderful overall, but she's a busybody that can't stand to have bad blood in the family. If I don't talk to Demitri now and at least make some sort of truce, Aunt Vesta will notice we aren't getting on and then pester us to tell her why and decide from that information to shove us in a room together and refuse to let us out until we forgive each other."

His brother purses his lips like he's going to argue, but then sighs. "That sounds like Mum," he agrees.

Severus gives Sage's shoulder a squeeze. "So you understand? I must speak to Demitri now. It's the only way it will be on my terms and not anyone else's."

"I do." He furrows his brows and searches Severus's face a moment. "I still don't like it, though. I hope your conversation goes well."

He smiles. "Thank you, Sage."

Wow is this chapter something. It is the longest I've ever written for TDKWWS! What do you think? Favorite part? Did you like finding out how and why they're all back in the past? Anything you don't care for?

Thanks a ton for reading :)