Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!
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Lily rolled over in bed early one morning and sighed as she realized she had once again woken alone.
She silently stood from the bed and yawned while she shuffled over, grabbed her robe, and pulled it on.
Slowly, she staggered out of the bedroom, across the hallway, and down the stairs only to find her husband in the kitchen, working furiously on yet another batch of protective potions.
"Sev, love, it's still very early." Lily called to him in a quiet voice as she crossed her arms and blinked her heavy eyelids with a frown, "Won't you come back to bed?"
"It's nearly finished." Severus murmured as he narrowed his eyes to slits while he added the last of the necessary ingredients to his cauldron, "Go on, my love, lie down and I'll join you there shortly."
"That's what you told me last night." She frowned, "Have you been to sleep at all?"
"Werewolves do not sleep." He quipped, "Werewolves are heartless, mindless predators…..I must do everything in my power to ensure my family does not become their prey."
Lily sighed again as she spoke, "Sev, sweetheart, I can't imagine the terror you lived through, but Remus is at the castle. He's not going to find us all the way out here, not even if he did transform and-"
"-Lupin is not the entirety of my worry." Severus interrupted.
"...What?" Lily frowned.
"The Dark Lord has a new recruit." Severus explained as he turned up the heat on the burner beneath his cauldron, "A beast of a man named Fenrir Greyback, does that name sound familiar to you?"
"No……." Lily admitted as she pursed her lips.
"A werewolf, indeed…..Mr. Greyback is a murderous brute with or without his transformation. I had the great displeasure of meeting him just last night. He's more monster than man, your former friend should know that quite well." Severus snapped.
Lily's eyes widened as he gazed at her and revealed, "Lupin has him to thank for his……condition."
She gasped as she held a hand over her mouth and exclaimed, "W-What does he want with Voldemort?!...Isn't Voldemort against the werewolves?"
"The Dark Lord is against everyone besides himself." Severus wisely replied, "However, he's not quite strong enough to take on the entire world, that's why he continues to recruit with his lies. Lies and more lies……..it's how he wins his followers. We do not have a direct quarrel with Mr. Greyback…yet…..and I'm aware Lupin is for now confined to the castle, by proximity, duty, or both, but our children are there too, Lily…..My mind is anything but at ease with all of these…….creatures……so very close to us."
Lily yawned again as she walked over, pecked Severus's lips, and asked, "So what are you making now?"
"Wolf Bite Tonic." Severus purred as he reluctantly pulled back from his wife's affection, "A derivative of Wolfsbane Potion, it protects the drinker from a werewolf's bite and has been shown through various research studies to reduce the fatalities and transmission of the disease from such wounds."
Lily forced her own drowsiness away as she nodded, gazed into her husband's eyes, and asked, "Alright then, how can I help, Sev?"
His wife's thoughtful gesture made his heart glow as he stared down at her.
Severus's tiring task seemed a little more pleasant as he spent the next hour completing his work with his beloved as his loyal assistant.
He couldn't help but be awed by Lily's beauty every time he glanced over at her.
She blushed when she caught Severus staring at her with his mouth agape and his black eyes uncharacteristically soft.
It didn't matter how much darkness seeped into Severus Snape's world, his darling Lily had always been able to bring back the light.
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Harriet blustered through her classes as best she could, although her two new professors were unexpected changes.
She found Lucius to be a stricter teacher than she had imagined, but Professor Lupin seemed to be much more lenient.
Harriet couldn't quite explain the kindness in his smile or the gentleness of his methods, but for some reason, she thought she noticed them more than her friends.
If she had known Remus's connection to her biological and adopted fathers, his treatment of her would have made much more sense.
She ignored Draco's haughty taunts and jeers in the hallways as the school year progressed, which made him want to scream in consternation.
Before Harriet noticed, October arrived and Hogwarts' classes adjourned for three wonderful days, which allowed the school's students to enjoy a bit of relaxation.
Like most of their classmates, Harriet and Ellery returned home for the rest of that week.
One morning, while their parents were busy outside gathering a few ingredients for a potion, Severus and Ellery looked up from the books they had sat quietly reading when the muggle phone Lily had insisted on having installed suddenly rang.
Ring, Ring!
Ring, Ring!
"Do you think we should call for Mum and Dad?" Ellery asked.
"It'll ring out before they can make it inside." Harriet shrugged.
Ring, Ring!
Ring, Ring!
"Maybe we should answer it…..." Ellery suggested.
Harriet watched her brother gaze at her with wide eyes as he silently begged her to take the telephone call in hopes that he would be able to avoid the social interaction of having to speak with the stranger on the other end.
"Oh, Ellery!" Harriet snapped.
He flinched when she used his first full name as a sign of her irritated disapproval.
Ring, Ring!
Ring, Ring!
Harriet leapt to her feet and rushed across the living room to answer the corded phone tucked into the corner of the cottage.
She brought the receiver up to her ear as she asked, "Hello?"
"Hello." A female voice answered, "May I please speak to Mr. Severus Snape?"
"This is his daughter, Harriet." Harriet replied as she glanced over at her frowning brother, "My father's not in right now. May I ask who's calling?"
Ellery scowled at his sister while Harriet listened to the voice on the phone, "This is Mary Hidgens with London Morning's Hospice and Palliative Care. I do have an urgent message for Mr. Severus Snape from Mr. Tobias Snape. Do you know when your father will be home?"
"Tobias Snape……?" Harriet asked.
She knew the name but not the face.
Severus had mentioned his father only once before, years ago, after Harriet had begged him to tell her about his own childhood.
It had been a startlingly brief conversation.
Severus had spoken two sentences about his own upbringing before he had walked out of the room with a horrible scowl on his pale face.
The afternoon of the bizarre call, Harriet's breathing hitched as clammy realization dawned on her.
"Would….Would you mind holding for a moment?" She asked the woman on the other end of the phone, "I'll see if my father's available."
Ellery blinked as he watched his sister toss the receiver onto the sofa and run outside.
He stood and peered through the window with a curious frown as he saw Harriet race to Severus and Lily.
Although Ellery couldn't hear the words that were said, he watched his family's interactions with close scrutiny.
Harriet spoke.
Lily frowned and took Severus's hand in a gesture of loving support.
Severus scowled as he said something to Harriet, which caused her to scowl in return.
Ellery raised a brow as their exchange visibly became emotionally heated before Severus pointed back towards the house with a pale, slender finger as he narrowed his eyes to slits while he glowered at Harriet.
After she stomped back to the cottage, the door flung open.
Ellery hurriedly sat back down as she picked up the receiver again.
"Sorry……" Harriet began as she rummaged around in the nearby end table's drawer for a quill and bit of parchment, "My Dad's indisposed….Um, he may be able to come by later tonight. Would you please give me the address so I can hand it to him?...Thanks."
Ellery's scowl deepened as he watched his sister scribble down the words that came from the other end of the phone before she hung up with a frown.
"Well?" He scowled as soon as Harriet laid the receiver down, "Are you going to tell me what all that was about?"
"Our Granddad's very sick." She frowned as she gazed at her brother, "They don't expect him to make it through the night and he wants to see Dad right away."
Ellery blinked.
"...But Dad's refused to go." Harriet frowned.
"Oh….." Ellery answered.
"So that means we have to go in his place." She concluded.
Ellery's eyes bulged as he sputtered, "W-What?! W-We can't do that! We don't even know Granddad! We've never met him before!"
"Now seems like the perfect time to change that, doesn't it?" Harriet scoffed as she crossed her arms.
"But….But….." Ellery stammered, "D-Dad wouldn't want us to! He doesn't want us to!"
"If he doesn't want to go for his own reasons, that's his business." Harriet shrugged, "I want to hear what our grandfather has to say. I had planned to meet him one day, as an adult. Think about it, we'll never know him if we don't go…….Tonight's our only chance."
Ellery frowned as a heavy silence settled between them.
"...Are you coming or not?" Harriet asked after a moment.
"How are we going to get there?!" Ellery huffed, "We can't apparate, we can't use the Floo…….Mum and Dad don't even own a muggle car….and we couldn't drive it if they did!"
"Just be grateful I've made such good friends, El." Harriet laughed as she stood and walked up the stairs.
Ellery's frown deepened as his sister called over her shoulder, "And get ready! As soon as Mum and Dad are asleep tonight, we'll have to hurry!"
As he glanced out the window at their parents, Ellery couldn't free himself of the woeful dread that gripped his heart.
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As a side note, I have heard pretty sufficient rumors that this site may be shutting down soon. If that does happen, please know that this story along with my others is posted on archive of our own under my username there - mermaid886.