They Didn't Know We Were Seeds

"Close," Dirk says in Gobbledegook to the faucet, effectively changing the password to open the Secret of Chambers. They had rowed about the simplicity of the password Dirk chose initially; to Severus, it feels risky to have the passcode be only one word. However, Dirk argued for the nonsensicalness of 'close' in regards to opening the chamber and swayed Lily to his side ('As if that's a surprise,' Severus thinks with a sneer to himself). The damnable Rookwood had stared at him with bored eyes when he asked her opinion and said:

"I don't care. After we're done here, it's never going to concern me again. Besides that, does it really matter if anyone goes into the chamber after us? The snake down there will be dead by then."

Her remark effectively outvoted him two, more like three, to one in regards to what the new password should be. Severus still isn't entirely certain he'll leave it alone once this is all over. He may change it for his own peace of mind and ensure no future Hogwarts students find their way into the Chamber where they can hurt themselves or use it for nefarious ends.

"What do we do next?" Dirk asks, pulling Severus from his plotting. Lily and Rookwood look at him as well. It hasn't really sunk in before, but it does now, that he is the leader (even if plans do not always go the way he would prefer). For once, he is in charge and no longer a pawn at the whims of greater men.

It's both shocking and exhilarating.

However, there is no time to soak in the feeling and, instead, he goes through what else must be done before they can venture into the Chambers (if they ever do, Severus is desperately hoping his grandfather will find them another way to destroy a Horcrux before they have to). He needs to check on Hagrid's flock and make sure his rooster is well. He has to finish brewing the batch of Mandrake Restorative Draughts for all of them should one or more of them be petrified while facing off against the basilisk. They also need weapons which they can use to slay the snake should Hagrid's rooster not be healthy and there is no time to aquire another. Harry and his little band used Godric's Sword, but Severus suspects any sword will do. Currently, he's contemplating the swords of some of Hogwarts's suits of armors and which he can take without causing much notice and he thinks they will be able to wield with little trouble.

He's also written his grandfather about sending a dagger for him in case he must get closer to slay the basilisk than a sword will allow. Severus still isn't too sure if he should ask for three more or not because the old man still doesn't know about Dirk or Rookwood and he'd rather keep it that way. He's been stung too many times by Demitri to let him know more than is necessary at this point. This, however, is something he doesn't think he will mention to the three just yet. Severus knows if nothing else he can ask for one more for Lily and it will be given to him. It will be at that point he'll have to decide which of the three should have it. Severus imagines he'll still hand it off to Lily, but he's not against the idea of putting it in Dirk's hands either at this point. From what he knows and Dirk has revealed, the Ravenclaw was never much of a fighter in his last life, but Severus does feel if he gave him a dagger he would learn how to be.

Then comes the matter of trying to get himself a vial of Phoenix Tears. Severus wants to be prepared in case the worst happens and someone is bitten – even if that person is Rookwood. Severus is also strongly contemplating asking his grandfather for them, but fears if he does it will make the old man think Severus is reliant on him and cause him to act up in ways that Severus wants to avoid. Add in the cost and the questions it will bring and Severus isn't certain it's a very good idea.

Recently, he's been contemplating how he might get to Fawkes and convince the bird to cry for him. Severus suspects he will have to ask to borrow James's invisibility cloak once more and think of a reasonable excuse for why he needs it. Even so, that might not be enough to help him.

Rookwood sighs as Dirk begins to cough into his hand, pulling Severus from his thoughts and reminding him he needs to share the next part of their plan. "Now, I check over Hagrid's flock, his rooster, in particular, to see if it is healthy and easily accessible for us to use. Then I finish brewing the draughts we will need in case one of us is petrified by the basilisk. After that, I have to figure out which swords we will steal from the suits of armors to use to battle the snake should the rooster fall through somehow. Once that's done, I need to find a way to obtain Phoenix Tears should the worst happen and one of us is poisoned by the basilisk."

"Is that all?" Rookwood snarks.

He glares at her. "This was but one step and you knew this long before you gave us the spell to change the password on the faucet."

"I thought you would have had everything else in hand by now!"

Severus pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a deep breath. "It is. The potions are nearly finished and I'm sure Hagrid's rooster is perfectly well. If it's not, I have several swords in mind for us to take, but am still in the midst of deciding which ones would suit us best individually. It is only the tears that I truly haven't begun to do anything about as I imagine I will need Lily's help for that." He turns to her. "I would appreciate it if you could ask James for his cloak."

She nods. "Of course."

"What's so special about his cloak that yours won't do?" Dirk asks with pure curiosity.

Rookwood sneers. "Yes, what about it is so special?"

Severus pulls his mouth into a line. He realizes now this is something he should not have brought up in front of the Hufflepuff. Rookwood might very well steal it he realizes. Internally, Severus curses and decides he ought to prepare a vial of Veritaserum to keep on hand should he need to force the truth from her about snatching the cloak. "It is an invisibility cloak."

"Wow!" Dirk enthuses. "I always wondered how Potter and his mates managed some of the pranks they did when we were in Hogwarts! I guess it was with the help of that cloak, aye?"

Lily's mouth curves into a smile. "It was."

Annoyed, Severus grumbles, "They used it a lot more than for just pranks."

Neither hears him and Lily is soon in the midst of telling a story to Dirk about a prank James and Sirius pulled with the cloak. To his right, he hears Rookwood snicker. Severus makes a crude gesture at her before he puts a hand on Lily's arm, drawing her attention to him. "I need to go check on the draughts," he tells her. "I trust you'll all be able to make it to your dorms?"

"Yes, we'll be fine. Thank you. See you in potions tomorrow?"

He nods in agreement before he takes his leave.

-o-O-o-

Absorbed in writing his essay, Sage doesn't even bat an eye when he comes to the end of his sheet of parchment. While he dips his quill in its inkpot to prepare it for a new page, he uses his free hand to reach into his satchel. He furrows his brows when he feels no new parchment inside. He sets aside his freshly inked quill and gets off his bed to go retrieve more parchment from his trunk. There are two more hours until dawn and he's not going to try and excuse his potions essay not being finished on having run out of parchment. Unfortunately, after checking his usual place beneath his books and then rifling around in the other compartments of his trunk, he realizes he's utterly out of parchment.

Sage blinks and wonders if he's used more than typical lately. He realizes that, yes, he has. Boyd has been writing more often lately (to his delight and consternation) and he's been responding in kind. He looks over his shoulder at Severus's bed. For once, he's beneath his quilt sound asleep. Over the years Sage has grown used to his brother not being in his bed as he should be (even if it irks him more than ever now that he's a prefect), he finds it to be a strange sight to see him slumbering in it. He finds it even stranger that Severus looks peaceful rather than tense and in the throes a nightmare.

He always wants to wake Severus up when he looks to be having unhappy dreams, but experience and his brother's warnings have taught Sage not too. Severus doesn't wake in the best mindset and is likely to try and hex or curse Sage – or attack him outright. And Severus insists he'd rather sleep through them and get the rest it entails rather than wake and try again for sweeter dreams.

Typically, he would attempt to wake Severus – nightmare or no – and ask if he can take some parchment from him. However, at the oddly soothing sight of his brother resting peacefully, Sage decides he should just get the parchment for himself. He knows how to open Severus's (excessively protected) chest himself and as much as his brother hates to have others in his things, Sage doesn't think he will be upset with him for going in it without his permission or knowledge.

He's just taking a few pieces of parchment.

Undoing the spells on Severus's trunk, he opens the lid and marvels at the neatness of his brother's things. Sage isn't a slob by any means, but even his trunk isn't this organized. Gingerly lifting and putting things down in his search for parchment, he grins when he finds what he needs. Pulling them from the trunk he takes notice of a curious little diary peaking out from behind a book he turned askew during his search for the parchment. Sage looks up to check on Severus. His brothers sleeps, chest rising and lowering at a slow pace. He picks up the diary.

Sage opens it and frowns when he sees nothing written inside. Why does Severus have an empty diary? All the rest of his brother's diaries that he's had the fortune of perusing were full of calculations and spells and potions recipes. It's evident in the light cracking of the leather around the spine this diary isn't a new one either. Is this a gift he's spitefully refused to use? It would be very Severus not to. Sage could do with a diary himself, he thinks. A place to write out all of the confusing thoughts he has about what his brother does and wants Sage to do and what he wants to do when he's older… Sage shakes his head. He can't just take this. Severus will notice – unlike with the parchment.

However, when he goes to put it back, he hesitates. He feels a certain pull that he simply can't ignore. Sage needs a diary and this is the one he wants. He sends a silent apology to his brother and tucks the diary beneath his armpit. Hopefully, Severus doesn't notice – or care – that it's gone. He fixes everything in his brother's trunk so it looks as undisturbed as possible before closing the lid.

Getting to his feet, Sage picks up his parchment and returns to his bed to finish his essay. However, before he starts on the next page, he cracks open the diary and writes inside it the date and his initials.

A moment later, across the page scrawls, Hello? SM? What kind of name is SM?

His eyes blow wide. Merlin, this is a charmed diary! Fascinated, Sage writes, It's not a name. They are my initials. My name is Sage Montague…

-o-O-o-

Severus systematically removes everything from his trunk and lays it out on his bed. Once done, he looks over his things once, then twice, then a third time. Finally, he growls, "Bugger all!" and starts to chuck it all back in his trunk with no care for where it falls or the resulting condition from his treatment. The diary is missing. How in Merlin's name it happened Severus doesn't know. Lily is the only one who he's showed how to open his trunk. While there's a slim chance she shared how to with Dirk (but he hopes she knew better than to do so), there's absolutely none that Rookwood learned from her or Dirk.

Could Rookwood have figured out the spells he has on the trunk and broken in to steal it? If so, what does she even want the diary for? To study? Use as leverage? Severus contemplates confronting her, but realizes it's a poor idea. If she did steal the diary, Rookwood's not going to confess and will deny she stole it even after (if) its recovered from her things. Perhaps he should just send Lily into her dorm during the night to go through her trunk and space to recover the diary perchance Rookwood did take it.

However, there is also a slim possibility it isn't Rookwood who lifted the diary and Severus doesn't want to push her over any lines that could endanger not only him, but Lily and Dirk, as well as the world as a whole. After all, there is an even smaller likeliness Lily is the one who took it. He knows she's been uneasy about it being so close to children from the moment she was told he would be keeping it in his school trunk in his dorm.

It seems unlikely she would have removed it without his permission, but she may have out of fear that he wouldn't let her move it to somewhere she deemed "safer". He would have, maybe, if allowed to thoroughly inspect the new hiding place and see if it really is more secure than his trunk. Surely Lily would have known this? Of course she would have. Severus and she have been mates far too long for her not to.

Slowly, Severus concludes he needs to speak to both girls – individually – and Dirk too, if only to know if he's seen or heard anything from the two. While he realizes this is the necessary course to take, he finds himself reluctant. What if it was a student who managed to break into his trunk? How is he ever going to live such a thing down? How will the others ever trust him (however grudgingly it might be with Rookwood and Dirk) to protect what's most important to them all ever again?

Uneasily, he decides he won't say anything just yet. He doesn't even know exactly when the diary was stolen. He'd checked for it on Saturday and now, three days later, the diary is gone. While he hasn't noticed any of the three behaving suspiciously the last few days, perhaps they will today, which will tell him they stole it just last night.

As Severus leaves for breakfast, he is so distracted by the mystery at hand he doesn't even notice that Sage's bed is still made from the day before. Perhaps if he had, he would have stopped to ponder the sight. If not sleeping in his bed last night, what could his brother have been doing during the twilight hours of Hogwarts?

-o-O-o-

When he passes the Great Hall's threshold he is almost immediately approached by Scabior's little sister, Mari. The girl's eyes are big and scared. "Severus!" she cries. "Ya 'ave to come with me! Scabior an' Posey are goin' to kill each other!"

He lifts his gaze to the staff table, the professors present are focused on their breakfasts, conversing with one another and the going-ons of the tables before them. Internally, Severus sighs. They are oblivious to true trouble as always, it seems to him. Though, he reluctantly admits some of the blame falls on the Gryffindor's shoulders. Why didn't she go to them? Immediately, he scoffs at himself for the thought. Why would Mari go to them? This girl doesn't see adults as helpful, only as a source of pain and disappointment. Just as he did when he was a child like her.

Shaking himself from his reverie, Severus returns his attention to Mari and nods. "Where are they?"

"Not far," she answers, leading them out of the Great Hall. "Mei was with us when Posey came at Scabior screamin' an' tryin' to grab 'im by 'is 'air. Mei told me to get 'elp while she kept the two of 'em from drawin' their wands on each other." Severus keeps right on the girl's heels as she leads them through a couple of corridors and finally out into one of Hogwarts courtyards.

Just as she described, Duffield is hollering and pointing at Scabior, who's yelling and shaking his fists back at his cousin from behind Mei, who looks as if she desperately wants away from the both of them. Briefly, Severus flicks his gaze around the courtyard. It's empty, but he can just barely see through some windows across the way there are the shadows of watching students.

'Those dunderheads should be going for help, not sticking around to watch things play out!" he thinks angrily.

While still ignoring what it is the two are exactly rowing about, Severus pulls out his wand and places a hand on Mari's shoulder. "Stay here," he orders. Approaching quickly, he makes eye-contact with Mei and urges her with his eyes to step out of the way. Thankfully, she understands and darts out from between the two.

It's at this point Scabior attempts to tackle Duffield. Severus casts a knock-back jinx on the boy, throwing him back a couple of meters. Duffield falls mute immediately in her astonishment. Just as her eyes meet his, he casts a jelly-leg on her, effectively taking her to the ground and limiting the trouble she can cause him as he hurries over.

"What is the meaning of this?" he demands in the same tone he used as a professor breaking up duels and brawls between students. It's not quite as heavy a timber as he would like, but he doesn't sound utterly ridiculous either. Puberty is finally returning to him the ability to sound authoritative instead of just bossy.

Duffield is just angry enough not to care it's him demanding answers. She jabs her finger in the direction of Scabior, whose in the midst of pulling himself to his feet after having the wind knocked out of him. "He told Mulciber and his mates I have a disease!"

Severus pinches the bridge of his nose. Of course Scabior did. Gathering his thoughts, Severus turns his attention to the boy and chides, "I told you, it's her choice if she wants to chat up all of the Slytherin upper-years and look like a slag."

The sixth-year's expression turns to one of affrontment as Scabior wobbles over to them, a deep scowl marring his features. "What 'bout when 'er bein' a tart 'as lads thinkin' Mari's one too!" he demands.

He swivels his head around to look at Duffield, who has dropped her gaze to the courtyard's stone-ground and has brought her arms up to wrap around herself. Severus looks over his shoulder next to where Mei and Mari are clinging to one another, or rather, Mari is clutching the upper-year, as Mei hugs her back in a bid to comfort her.

While he can't say he foresaw this being one of the consequences of Duffield's behavior, Severus isn't surprised either. He's seen one student mar or aid a family many times over the years. It is unfortunate Mari's receiving such ill-attention so early in her Hogwarts career as well. She's a child and to already be earning such attention from boys… Perhaps they can find a way to stop this now before it becomes an unmanageable problem for Mari.

"I told you before I wouldn't tell you how a poor idea chasing the lads of Slytherin was," he began, "and I still won't. However, you ought to give some serious thought to how much you want to hurt your family in your bid to ensnare a small fortune for yourself."

The upper-year looks torn between irritation at being chided by her junior and ashamed she'd brought such attention to her little cousin. Severus is actually quite relieved that she appears to have some kind of a conscience after all. He'd wondered. "Unjellify," says Severus, releasing Duffield from the jinx he placed on her. Satisfied she'll be able to pick herself up and leave if she so wishes, he shifts all his attention to Mari.

The Gryffindor is a bit teary-eyed and furrows her brow when he smiles at her. "As for you, Mari, I think it's time you learn what to do when someone won't accept 'no' for an answer." Keeping his voice light, he remarks, "I imagine Scabior told you how he won last year's dueling competition and what a skilled duelist he is already, but do you know Mei was also a participant? As was I?"

Slowly, Mari shakes her head.

"That's quite all right," replies he; Severus smirks at Scabior. "Your brother probably just forgot to tell you," Severus lower his voice to a whisper and adds, "he is a bit conceited, after all."

This draws out laughter from both Mari and Mei, while the boy behind Severus huffs loudly with fake-annoyance and some genuine amusement. Severus's smirk widens into a grin as he explains, "The three of us will help you learn how to duel and defend yourself so no boy will ever be able to touch you unless you want him to."

"Four," Duffield corrects. "I'm not much of a duelist, but I'll show you some tricks I've learned for the exact same reason you will now."

Severus finds himself speechless as he stares at the girl, who gazes back, defiant and daring him to deny her this. Severus won't. He's not a dunderhead and can see this might be exactly how he shows Duffield her plan is rubbish and how her family isn't all a bunch of money-grubbing arseholes. He nods. "The four of us will," he agrees.

The girl looks taken aback all of a second before she smiles, pleased.

Their good mood sours, however, when the door to the courtyard collides with the stone wall next to it, rattling and shaking from the force. They all turn to see Professor McGonagall fast approaching.

"What are you lot up to?" demands the woman in her sternest voice as she settles both her hands on her hips, her gaze expectant of answers – and honest ones at that.

Severus finds himself rolling his eyes. Now students went to get her? After all possibility of a ruckus dropped to none? How typical!

Mei lets go of Mari and steps forward. "Nothing, Professor," she tells the professor.

McGonagall only narrows her eyes.

Duffield sighs and puts a hand on his and Scabior's shoulders. "Nothing now," she amends. "Scabior and I were having a bit of a row, but Snape here noticed and came out to calm us all down." She flashes him a smirk. "He has quite a way about him, I have to say."

Scabior begins to gag, but quickly cuts it out when Duffield turns her grip on him piercing. This comes as a great relief to Severus; he hopes that the upper-year is being complimentary for McGonagall's sake, because he absolutely dreads the idea of having to let her (or any girl) down.

The professor flicks her eyes over all of them before she dips her chin in acquiescent. "Five points to Slytherin for helping to de-escalate a situation, Mr. Snape," she says. "Now, I suggest you lot head to the Great Hall for breakfast. It won't be served for much longer and you have Transfiguration with me in a quarter of an hour, Ms. Duffield."

"Yes, Professor," they reply in tandem.

With one last look at them, the Head of Gryffindor turns to leave – all of them trailing close behind. A discussion about Mar's training will have to wait, but Severus reckons it won't be long at all before they are all back in this courtyard practicing with her.

Life happened last week, so, sorry about that.

Anyway, how did you enjoy the chapter? The scene with the Scabiors, their cousin, Mei and Severus?

Thanks for reading, I appreciate you taking the time to do so so, so much :)

Edited: 1/13/20