Authors Note: Thank you for your lovely reviews and all the favourites/alerts. It means a lot to me that people are enjoying reading my work more than you can imagine. I just want to reiterate that I never intended this story to be about Snape alone... this story is much bigger than that; it is the people connected to him that I find equally fascinating, and that really is where this idea came about. I apologise if I don't put as much Snape in the story as some would like, perhaps... but focusing on him purely was never my intention to begin with. This is a story about families first and foremost :)
That being said - hoorah, he's in this one. Enjoy him while you can.
MystFatale.
34
Games Begin
Severus collapsed the mahogany dining table, panting into his forearms.
"You are still letting me get in too far!" Serafina barked - her wand still raised at her grandsons head.
"You're not getting anywhere at all!" he snarled back with equal vehemence. He knew what her argument would be before the first word of that comeback snaked out from his lips.
"I know that you are half Muggle. I know that you are in love with a Muggle-born. I know that you lust after another. I know that you do not submit to the doctrine of the Dark Lord and therefore you are disloyal and not to be trusted. The fact that you are able to prevent me from hearing specific words or images means less than nothing!"
He didn't even bother to ask how she had managed to gauge his loyalties and history from the one infinitesimal crack in his subconscious that he had allowed her to slither into… he just knew that he had had enough. His skull felt like a half eaten bowl of treacle pudding.
Severus heard a sigh behind him, and sharp footsteps began to make their way around the table, making a stop when they were directly opposite him.
"We have a couple of days to get you completely disposed for anything he might ask of you," Serafina said as gently as she could – though the frustration in her voice could not be cloaked. "Occlumency will be your saving grace, Severus. Without it, I have no doubt that you will be killed at the hands of your contemporaries."
"I am well aware of its importance; you may skip the inspiring pep talk, grandmother."
"Then cease your interminable whining and do it again."
"I can't..."
"SHUT-UP. DO IT AGAIN!"
All desire to complain and to combat vanished, and all that was left was the yearning to obey her. Severus had never known anyone so confident in their all-consuming presence in his entire life – the Dark Lord was a shivering puppy standing in a puddle of the contents of its nervous bladder paralleled to her. Even Aurora paled in comparison. Torn of her meek disguise, his grandmother towered above him… narrowed black eyes raining fire upon all of the lesser mortals of this earth. And he had no doubt that everyone was a lesser mortal… moldable, a mere instrument, in those eyes. He jolted to attention almost immediately, as if pulled by the strings of a puppeteer.
Severus's eyes were barely half-closed before Serafina's wand massacred the air.
"Legilimens!"
This time he had shut the iron bars upon her intrusion into his mind. He must have. He could feel his mind being pulled toward her, ripped from his brainstem, but he kept it shut. Only her fingertips clawed at it.
Serafina withdrew her wand and they both stumbled backward, their soft panting echoing against the cold stone walls of the ballroom of Prince Manor. If Severus had not felt so exhausted to the point of collapse, he would have smirked triumphantly. Finally. Finally he had managed it. The fact that every cell in his body ached was slightly concerning… would it be like this every day from now on?
"Finally." Severus huffed to himself, barely able to stand upright. He kept a keen eye on his grandmother – who had one hand on the back of a chair, the other on her on hip, frame equally as curved. She nodded. He was glad to get even that amount of approval.
"Good, now do it again."
"Wh… What?"
"You heard me. Do you think I am going to let you toddle off to join the Death Eaters after only a fluke of an Occlumency shield with all of the secrets that you hold? You'll do it again and again until I am satisfied that you won't ever let that guard down. Get up and do it again!"
It was the first time in years that Severus had felt salty beads fill his eyes. "I can't, I can't do it anymore," he pleaded more than argued.
Instead of showing one fragment of empathy, the equally tired looking witch stood to full height once more. "Well, we have a problem…"
"I can do anything else; you can train me in any other expanse you see fit, I just need to stop-"
"That is perfectly fine, dear. Mention to the Dark Lord that you just don't have the energy for him to probe your mind at the moment and have him concentrate on a spot of cursing. Or, if he is feeling particularly accommodating, just ask him to set you down for a bit of a nap for a few hours until you feel a hundred percent again. I would assume that a grandson as intelligent as mine would have understood the gravity of the situation by now! And here you are whining about wanting a break!"
"I DON'T WANT A BREAK." Severus had well and truly snapped by now. She would not get away with her manipulations of him. He was going to be like the only other person who refused to let her walk all over them… he would be like his mother (as astonishing as that avowal was). "I am not an idiot! I understand that he will never let me rest as long as I live, but I will grow to master my skills. I am going to do none of you damned people any good if I end up a delirious vegetable in a locked St. Mungo's ward."
Serafina opened her mouth for yet another glorious retort.
"Mistress Sera! Mistress Sera!"
The House elf came scurrying around the corner of the fifteen foot oak doors. Both Serafina and Severus dropped their defenses and stood, rather awkwardly, looking at her.
"I told you not to disturb us, Missy. What is it?" Serafina enquired.
"Missy is sorry, Mistress Sera, so very sorry! But Mistress… it is Master Atticus, Mistress. He has fallen and Missy is trying to help him but Missy is not strong! Not strong like her Mistress!"
"Is he breathing, Missy?" Serafina asked, sounding alarmed… but part of Severus believed the alarm was for a very different kind of reason than that of concern for his well-being.
"Yes, Mistress."
Mistress sighed.
"Very well, I'm coming up." She pointed a well-manicured finger at Severus. "It's your lucky day, my boy. Sit and wait for me."
Severus gazed submissively to the floor and nodded, feeling both dried his tears and failure. The House Elf continued to stare at him for a while and then followed her mistress upstairs to attend to the almost nonentity Mr. Prince.
As soon as witch and house elf were out of sight, Severus made a beeline for the kitchen, where he promptly vomited into the sink.
He remained, head in basin, for a few moments before he turned on the tap and cupped the cool water in his hands, which he splashed over his face. Severus took one swig from the running liquid and spat it back out again before he turned it off and began rummaging around the draws blindly for a hand towel. There were hardly any culinary contraptions, or indeed anything remotely homely, in this kitchen. Most of the drawers were stuffed with official documents stamped from the Ministry of Magic and the odd ominous-looking magical contraption or two; one drawer contained nothing but spare potion bottles, one contained parchment and quills, the potion bottles that were in use were lined up neatly on the window pane – he cocked his head and read one with a small little label entitled 'Myfanwy Jenkins All-Purpose Potion Stain Remover: The Potion To Erase All Potions!'. It was probably then, at that moment, that Severus realised he wasn't all that accustomed to living in an all magic household… it did not feel right that these things should be casually littered around the place; he had an uncontrollable urge to hide them all in the attic.
He caught sight of a stock standard document from the Ministry and, curiosity getting the better of him, picked it up. Having been brought in a world of Muggle bank statements and junk mail for Woolworths, seeing statements that included galleons and sickles fascinated him to the point of mania. He began to read what sort of information the Ministry liked to send out to the most privileged ones… he was quite taken aback to see that the Department from which this letter came from the Wizengamot.
Attn: Ms. Serafina Black, Senior Interrogator,
…
Severus held his stomach in and pressed on.
I write to summon you forth for the next scheduled court date for the trial of Mister William Padget.
Courtroom twenty-one, April 15th 1945 at precisely seven thirty A.M.
Warmest Regards,
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
Chief Warlock of the Wizenga...
"Enjoying yourself?" came a voice from directly behind him. Severus subconsciously threw the letter back into the drawer and slammed it shut.
"You never said…" Severus cleared away a croak, and started again. "You never said you were part of the Black family."
He turned to see Serafina glaring at him, arms folded.
"What does it matter? You expected me to come from muck? There are only so many pureblood households I could have sprouted from. Come, let us continue." She quickly turned from a surprised Severus, shocked that she did not give a much bigger reprimand for snooping through her personal mail, and stormed away back into the ballroom. He followed at her heels, determined to press her for more.
"So I am part Black?" he persisted. He vaguely remembered Lucius Malfoy mentioning something about the Black family when he had broken into his grandmother's memories the night that she came to find him in the motel, but there had been so much for him to take in that he had let that piece of information completely slip him by. Until now.
"You are a Prince."
Severus stopped short in the doorway, feeling his already delicate stomach drop to his feet; he leant weakly against the wall.
"Shall we start again?" Serafina raised her wand and waited patiently for him to respond. She seemed very eager to cut this conversation short.
"You're part of the Wizengamot?" Severus questioned, his curiosity completely overpowering the desire to continue with training. There were so many questions that his already sore head was positively spinning around the room.
Serafina flicked the wand back into the pocket, obviously resigned to the fact that she would have to have dialogue with him sooner or later. She drifted over to the window.
"I was." She corrected. Severus took a seat.
"You know Dumbledore?"
"I knew him," Serafina said indifferently. "We were colleagues for many years, he and I."
Severus shook his head. He thought he knew nothing before. He always blindly assumed that his grandmother was nothing more than the mere gold-digging socialite his mother despised, to find out that she actually had a career, that she sat in the same courtroom as Professor Dumbledore for years and now she was sending her own grandson to join the army directly opposing him, that she had a past within the Wizarding world.
"Right," Serafina announced loudly, signaling the very end of the conversation. "Let us leave the Occlumency until later tonight; we shall go into the grounds and practice curses."
"I am well versed in curses," Severus informed her. "I invent them. I need no practice."
He had never openly admitted that to anyone before, but he needed to trust that she would use any information he gave her to his advantage. Serafina did indeed look interested, even proud… he could see the plans forming into extravagant webs in her head.
"Then we must hone your forte. That could come in very handy down the track. Come – outside. I will get Missy to bring us some iced tea."
As he followed her through the labyrinth of corridors and entrances and exits into the vast grounds of the manor, Severus could not help but question her sudden change in direction. She was so adamant that they practice the mental arts before… and now that he was probing her for answers to questions previously unknown, it almost appeared as if she were desperately trying to avoid something letting slip from her own mind. He knew, somehow, that it all began with the information concealed in those letters.
After the days work had ended, Severus made a mental plan to lock himself in his new bedroom and piece it all together. There was a dangerous secret within this family – and he would have to rely on his always-dependable analytical skills as opposed to his magical abilities to unearth it before he was sent away as their bait. Before it was too late.
When they were both a safe distance from the manor, Serafina draw her wand and made a jerky pattern with it through the air. A floating white, featureless dummy materialized in front of them where it hovered eerily above Severus's head. She motioned to it.
"Let's see some of your handiwork."
He nodded and drew his wand. "Step aside."
When Serafina was positioned behind him, he mustered all of the anger within him (which did not take too long) and sliced his wand in a clean diagonal line from his hip to the top of his head.
"Sectumsempra!"
A flash of green light divided the space between the manor and the lush gardens beyond. The white dummy's entire head and abdomen split open and all of its fluffy, cotton insides spilled out from the hundreds of vicious incisions. He felt his grandmother's sharp fingernails dig painfully into his shoulder.
As they both stood, watching the materials disintegrate onto the manicured grass, Severus jumped when he felt her kiss the back of the head. He quickly snapped around and came face to face with the most awestruck pair of eyes he had ever seen directed at him.
"That is brilliant," she whispered, as if all faith in their plan had been completely rebuilt. "You are brilliant."
And no matter how much he hated himself for doing so – Severus smiled.
It was a pleasant new experience, having someone be proud of you.