They Didn't Know We Were Seeds
After Amelia's deemed well enough for auror questioning by the mediwizard, Moody forced to return to St. Mungo's with the mediwitch, and Lewis Fenwick's body taken away, Severus and Lily are made to wait even longer in the Fenwick home with the rest of the partygoers while the aurors scope out the house and yard and talk to people. Finally, as three in the morning starts to role by, the aurors start sending some of them home. Lily and Severus are first among the many partygoers given the okay to leave.
The aurors know now they were in the middle of the lounge room celebrating with most of the guests when Fenwick, Moody, and Bones were attacked and that they can offer little to them in the way of clues. They also see them as the young teenagers they physically are and want them back home as soon as possible to their surely worried sick parents. An older, graying auror with a paternal look in his brown eyes asks them after they are told they can leave:
"Do you kids need someone to give you a hand home?"
Severus shakes his head. "Yes, sir," he replies. "My mum's fireplace is connected to the Floo network and she can get Lily home from there."
He nods and takes them to the floo where Severus and Lily squeeze themselves into the fireplace and he yells out the name of his and his mum's home as he throws down the floo powder the auror handed him just moments before. Not a minute later, they are stepping out of his cottage's hearth and into the lounge room. Unsurprisingly, the lounge room is not empty. His mother is deeply asleep on the sofa in front of the hearth and there is a single candle glowing next to where her hand rests near the room's floor. Severus sighs at the sight and summons over a blanket from the armchair to the left and drapes it over his mother and picks up the candle. Gesturing for Lily to follow him, he leads her into the kitchen. There, they are greeted by the tired thumping of Ichabod's tail. Locating the sound as coming from under the table, Severus crouches down to give the dog's head a pat.
"Good boy," he murmurs before standing back up. Turning then to Lily, he whispers, "Let's go outside to apparate. I don't want to upset Ichabod or wake Mum."
She nods and as quiet as robbers, they slip out of the cottage and into the fields out back. Once they are several feet into the fields outside, he turns to Lily and starts to say, "Do you—" only to be hit up on the side of a head by something hard covered in cloth. "Oh!" he exclaims as he scrambles to grab hold of what it is that's hit him. He quickly realizes it's a cloth pouch. "Take the candle," he tells Lily, handing it over to her.
Leaning in, she asks him, "What is it?"
"I'm not sure," Severus replies, frowning. He looks up, trying to spot where the pouch came from. It's difficult to see much in the darkness of the country, but he imagines an owl is what dropped this on his head. "Let's see what's inside," he says. Undoing the draw strings, he pulls the pouch off what feels like a chalice. His heart, which had begun to race upon this realization, stutters to an abrupt stop when it's proven true. "It's Helga Hufflepuff's cup," he whispers, holding it up for Lily to view.
"No," she whispers.
Turning it in his hands, he says, "The Lord must have done his business at the Rookwood's tonight," he said. His stomach churns. "I think I know now what Bellatrix Lestrange did to be awarded the cup."
"What?" demands Lily.
He meets her gaze over the candlelight. There's fear in her eyes and Severus realizes she suspects the answer, she just wants him to confirm it. He swallows. "She landed the killing spell on Lewis Fenwick," he whispers, "I reckon her husband probably took Moody's eye and the end of his nose too. I'm sure it's why the Lord decided to entrust it to them."
"Oh no," she warbles. "I wish we'd known. We could have done something to stop it."
Severus presses his lips into a thin line and shakes his head. "Lily, you can't think like that. We'll drive ourselves mad if we start wondering if there wasn't something we could have done after every tragedy."
"Severus, we were there!"
He puts a hand over her mouth. "Don't," he hisses. "None of us knew."
Slowly, she nods and Severus takes away his hand. Voice soft, he says, "I do wish we could have saved Lewis too. But it's too late now and getting upset doesn't help us or him. What will is destroying this Horcrux, all of the rest, and ending the war before it takes all the lives it did in our first life."
"You're right," she replies. "I'm sorry."
He sighs and looks to Hufflepuff's cup. "It's fine," he replies. Looking up, he says, "Will you stay here with the cup while I get the basilisk venom from my room?"
"We're destroying it now?" she asks, seemingly shocked at his haste.
He nods. "Yes, then we will bury it. If we wait until we are all together at Hogwarts again to do it, we will be putting our goals at risk. Remember, horcruxes have a negative influence on people and that's the last thing we need."
"Oh, yes," she says, offering an embarrassment-tinged smile, clearly feeling silly now for having forgotten that horcruxes can influence those around them. "I will stay here," she agrees after a beat.
"Thank you," he says before handing her the chalice to hold in the hand that doesn't have the candle. He gives her wrist a reassuring squeeze before he turns away and Hurries back inside his family's cottage. There, he moves as silently as a ghost to his room. Once safely in his bedroom, he goes to his trunk and pulls out the venom he'd hidden in one of the less noticeable compartments. He starts to get to his feet, but freezes when his mum calls from his open doorway, "Severus?"
"Mum?" he returns while trying to hide his dismay. Why in Merlin's name did she have to awaken now ?
"I didn't hear you come in," she says through a yawn. "You're late," she adds, leaning her tired body against the frame of his doorway, arms crossing lazily in front of her.
He sighs and pockets the vial of venom and reaches back into his trunk to pull a pair of jimjams out of it. "It's a long story," he tells her. "Can I tell you in the morning? I just want to get dressed for bed and go to sleep."
Her expression is apprehensive and she doesn't say anything at first. Finally, she asks, "What's that light outside?"
He looks up from his trunk and out the window of his room. Internally, he curses when he spots the candle glowing like a star against the country darkness. "That's part of the story," he answers.
His mum's brows furrow and he can see the beginnings of frustration narrowing her eyes. "Oh?" she murmurs.
Severus grits his teeth and stands up. "It's just Lily," he replies. "She's waiting for me to bring her a portkey I made to take her home, since the one the Fenwicks gave us won't work because we stayed later than planned."
She stares at him, eyes wide and more awake than the moment before. "You made a portkey?"
"At school," he lies. "I just wanted a way to go and see her without having to bother you every time over the summer."
"It's never a bother," she says, frowning. "Besides, I should know where you're going and when, that's a mum's job."
He sighs. "I'll keep that in mind," he tells her. Putting his jim jams on his bed, he goes and pushes past his mum. "I really need to give her the portkey now, though. Her parents are going to be cross enough with her as it is."
As he hurries down away from her, she yells, "Don't think this discussion is over, Severus Snape!" Tone angry, she calls, "There will be some firm rules about portkeys and your coming and goings starting tomorrow!"
Severus rolls his eyes as he goes out the back door to rejoin Lily. Whatever rules she puts in place, he'll find a way around them. Or he will just break them. Any punishment she could possibly give him won't stop him either. A small part of Severus thinks he should feel poorly for planning to be such a disobedient son, but a larger part of him just can't find it in him to care. He's not actually a child. He can handle himself better than many adults and, really, after the last few years, why does he owe her his respect?
He shakes his head, ridding his mind of his thoughts about his mother after he leaves the cottage. It doesn't matter now. What does is destroying the chalice before anything goes wrong. Once again at Lily's side, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the vial of poison. "I have it," he says. Looking at the ground, he spots a rock and picks it up. Drawing out his wand, he turns it into a dagger which he then coats with some of the venom. "Put it on the ground," he tells Lily.
Quickly, she obeys, laying it at his feet. Severus crouches down and, for a moment, lifts the dagger high before he stabs it into the cup. Hufflepuff's chalice smokes and crackles and breaks into several pieces. He looks up at Lily and smirks. "We've rid the world of two now. I reckon we can make it three before the school year is out."
She grins back. "And then we'll only have two more before we can kill the monster himself."
He nods and gets back to his feet. Turning another rock into a shovel, he uses it to dig a hole about two feet deep. Using his foot he kicks the larger pieces of the chalice into the hole. He then bends down to gather the smaller pieces to pu in the hole. While he puts most into it, he keeps two fragments. Quickly covering the hole afterwards, he stamps it down with his foot and then says to Lily, "I think we ought to send these fragments to Priscilla and Dirk. They'd like the proof we did it, don't you agree?"
"Yes," she answers. "Dirk will believe me, if I say we did it, but Priscilla… I imagine she'll trust us more if she receives proof."
He nods, satisfied they are like-minded on this issue. "I'll take care of it. You can go home now, okay?"
Lily smiles. "All right, if you're sure," she agrees. Leaning in, she wraps her arms around him and hugs him tightly a moment. "I will see you at Hogwarts in a couple of days, okay?"
He pats her back and lets her go. "Yes, in just a couple of days," he says.
She bites her lip. "Be safe."
"You too," he echoes.
His friend smiles and nods before disappearing with the crack of apparition. For a moment, Severus just stand still in the darkness. Then, he looks to his hand where the fragments weigh heavy and warm in the palm of his hand. Severus decides he will send them now, yet he realizes it will probably be morning before Dirk and Priscilla see them. The thought doesn't unsettle him in the least. Even if their families find them first they won't know what to make of these two small, tarnished, bits of half-broken gold. Only Priscilla and Dirk will. Severus hopes it brings them both the feeling of satisfaction he feels now. They have far to go, but not nearly as far as just a quarter of an hour ago.
-o-O-o-
"Something must have happened," Demitri declares from where he paces next to her window.
Priscilla rolls her eyes and continues to scratch the day's events into her diary. It's a habit now, to spend an hour or so writing about nothing and everything that happens to her. She had begun it in her first year in the past when she was ten and needed something to fill her time while she waited to be older and in a more advantageous position to do something to help her family. Her starting a diary also gave her the ability to write out her past (future?) in front of her family in plain sight and keep it safe. While all of her family members have their flaws, they have never disrespected Priscilla's privacy.
The old man turns to face her, expression vexed as he grumbles, "Do you have nothing to say?"
"He's fine," she replies, licking her thumb and using it to turn to fresh page in her diary. "Severus is clever. He wouldn't have let anything happen to himself."
He crosses his arms and directs his glower to the world outside the window. "You have quite a lot of faith in him, don't you?"
Priscilla shrugs and finishes writing tomorrow's date at the top of the new page. She blows on the wet ink, drying it, and closes her diary. Tucking it beneath the cushion of her chair, she looks up at Demitri. "And you don't seem to have much at all in Severus," she returns. "I understand you see us as all as bunch of fools, but I can assure you even if the rest of us are subpar – which we are not – Severus is absolutely the best of us."
"I do not," he denies, shifting his glare to Priscilla.
She gets up and joins him by the window to watch for her owl's return. She imagines it won't be long now with dawn on just starting to peek over the horizon. "Then what is it?" she asks. "You were like this as a professor too, I gather. You didn't trust Severus to convincingly lose his duel against his upper year opponent."
"He's my grandson, all I want is for him to be safe."
Priscilla scoffs. "Safe," she repeats, derisive. While she remembers Demitri from her first life as being a fairly amiable figure in her pre-Hogwarts childhood, she's seen more of him now, understood more. He's clever, that's for sure. He's made himself an affable person to all and his opinions just neutral enough it can offend no one on the surface. Yet in the name of keep himself comfortable, he's given up on things that would force him to take a side. His daughter most notably. Yet even in choosing estrangement over accepting her husband he showed his true colors. He is no friend to the Muggles and Muggle-borns. It is why the Lord had no qualms about his addition at the Lestrange's entrusting of the chalice. Or, that's at least what Priscilla thinks.
"Is that truly so hard to believe?" Demitri asks her, "I gave up on trying to keep my daughter safe when she insisted on marry that brute and look what happened to her. Why shouldn't I want to try and do better with Severus? Even more so when he insists on going up against this – this devil?"
Priscilla is about to reply to the positive when her owl lands on her windowsill. A triumphant smirk bursting across her face, she glances up at Demitri, who purposefully has averted his eyes away from her. She doesn't even care. He knows now how stupid he'd been to doubt Severus. Opening her window, she greets the owl and coos, "Severus got the cup, didn't he, Orvil?"
The owl trills and leans into her touch. Priscilla spends a couple of minutes praising the owl before she goes to retrieve a treat from the jar of them she keeps on her desk for owls. As she reaches in for one, Demitri calls, "You may want to bring a second."
She looks up. "Why?"
"There's another owl here, my daughter's if I'm not mistaken."
Priscilla quickly fishes out a second and hurries over to the window. Demitri is right there is another owl. A young one, from the looks of him. No wonder he arrived so soon after Orvil. Giving both owls a treat, she takes off the new owl's foot a small pouch. Curious, Priscilla opens it and dumps it into her palm.
A small, tarnished bit of melted gold falls into her hand along with a scrap of parchment. Her heart beats faster as she closes her hand around the metal and brings the parchment up for her eyes to read. The thin, tall scrawl reads:
I thought you may like a piece of our success
S.S.
She snorts and hands the note to Demitri who's more than happy to take it. "A piece, he says?" he prompts. Priscilla opens her hand for him to see the little piece of metal. His shoulders loosen at the sight and he asks, "What will you do with it?"
Priscilla considers the piece of Hufflepuff's cup with a scrutinizing eye. Thoughtfully, she questions, "Do you think I could turn this into a pendant for a necklace?"
Demitri nods. "I don't see why not."
-o-O-o-
Dirk stumbles down the hallway into his parents' kitchen half past nine. Yawning into the crook of his arm, he sits down at the kitchen table next to his visiting cousin, Tess, and accepts the plate of eggs, ham, and toast his mum hands to him. "Thanks, Mum," he says while picking up a fork to dig in.
His cousin scrunches her freckled nose when he pours himself a cup of tea and starts to drink it straight. "How can you do that?" she demands.
Dirk shrugs at the ten-year-old and continues to drink. He'd acquired a taste for straight tea during his short stint on the run after his falsified family tree was found out. While there were often times bags of tea to go around, milk, sugar, and anything else you might want to add to the drink less so. The girl puffs out her cheeks and begins poking at the under-cooked eggs still on her half-eaten plate. "When are Mummy and Dad coming?" she whines at Dirk's mum.
"Oh, I imagine it won't be too much longer," his mum replies coming back over to the table with her own serving of breakfast and an odd little pouch. "I'm sure they went home and went to bed shortly after they rang the New Year in with their mates at the pub." She turns her attention to Dirk then, smiling at him with the gap between her two front teeth prominently on display. "Ducky, one of your schoolmates sent you this," she tells him while holding out the pouch for Dirk.
Blue-green eyes sparkling with inquisitiveness, Tess leans in and asks, "What is it?"
Frowning, Dirk answers, "I'm not sure…" Undoing the string and pulling the pouch open, he pulls out a piece of cracked and tarnished gold. Turning it over in his fingers, he hums speculatively before peering back in the pouch. "Who sent you broken gold?" Tess asks, face scrunched.
"Dunno yet," he answers. Catching sight of a folded up piece of parchment inside the pouch, Dirk reaches in and pulls it out. Opening the scrap, he reads:
Two down, three to go.
S.S.
Dirk grins. Two Horcruxes gone as of today. What a way to bring in the New Year. He can only hope this year will see another, maybe two, if they are extremely fortunate, three more finished. What a year this could be.
"—Dirk? Dirk, ducky, what does it say?"
He looks up at his mum. "Huh?" mumbles Dirk. "Oh," he says, realizing they are both still waiting for some kind of explanation for the strange post he received. He glances at Tess who knows nothing of magic. His family had decided to keep it secret from his aunts, uncles, and cousins, especially in the case of little Tess, who doesn't need to hear stories about a magical, wondrous place she will never see.
Thinking quickly, he answers, "Oh, my mate's just gotten his new smelter working. I've had a hand in helping him make it. He decided I should get a piece of his first project."
His mother nods, though, Dirk knows she'll want a more in-depth story later. A real one (he better start making up a believable lie for her and Dad). As for Tess, she just frowns. "What's a smeller?"
"It's a smel-ter," Dirk huffs before breaking into a rudimentary explanation of an equipment he only has a passing understanding of.
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