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Chapter 33Severus looked around the assembled group of people and gave thanks that his son had so many brilliant friends. Bill Weasley, Poppy Pomfrey, Remus Lupin, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger all sat in the Snape sitting room, waiting to begin the meeting that Severus had called. He was certain that they all had canceled plans in order to be there since he didn't give them much notice. He had dropped by Lupin's office the evening before and the Infirmary immediately after, letting Poppy know that she would need to bring an hourly nurse in from St. Mungos as she did whenever she needed some additional help in the Infirmary or whenever she couldn't be there. He had simply sent the Gryffindors quick notes including the date and time and his son's most recent password—he was lucky that he had overheard his son talking about it the day before.
Tallis was out for the day. He was supervising a detention in the morning: one of his students and three of his Father's. He and Severus had agreed at the beginning of the year that they should try to schedule their detentions at the same time and then take turns observing so that each could limit the amount of time they would waste overseeing students do busy work. Tallis had volunteered to take Saturday detentions when his Father agreed to take the Friday night ones, freeing him up to go on a date with Bill. They hadn't been able to leave campus for safety concerns but they had dinner together at the top of the astronomy tower under the stars followed by some good old-fashioned teenage snogging. Tallis had never made out with anyone in the tower and Bill told him that everyone needed to do it at least once.
Severus knew that after the detentions his son planned to meet Draco for lunch and some flying in the afternoon. Tallis was working hard to be friends with Draco. It was very difficult for him to put himself out there that much, to agree to eat lunch with someone and to go out with them later. Severus was pleased with the plan not only because it would help his son on many levels but because it also got him out of their rooms so that he could have this meeting.
No one was certain exactly how long Tallis would be gone though so they needed to be as quick as possible. He hastily put up silencing charms on the entire apartment and impenetrable barriers at every door. He couldn't chance anyone hearing any of this. There were too many people on both sides of the war who would profit from this information. Hell, even those who weren't on a specific side of the war would profit from it.
He cleared his throat, getting everyone's attention. "I have called you here today because I feel that there is a need to advance our somewhat hastily made plans. As most of you know, Bill had proposed to Tallis some time ago that we kill Harry Potter and frame the muggles. The court trial that would ensue would undoubtedly expose Dumbledore's manipulations, ensuring that both Dumbledore and the muggles would be sent to Azkaban immediately with life sentences at the very least." Everyone nodded. This was all news to Remus who had only recently found out that Tallis was Harry Potter but he definitely approved of any plan that would simultaneously hurt Dumbledore and the bastards who hurt his godson.
"Tallis decided to put the actual implementation of this plan off for a bit out of fear of losing Dumbledore too quickly. Unfortunately, Tallis was right: we do need the old man leading the Order and we will no doubt need the Order to end this war. We should also remember that Tallis has yet to actually agree to this plan. We will not enforce any part of it, especially anything that could lead to a trial with the muggles, without his full knowledge and consent." Everyone nodded solemnly. They all knew a bit of what happened with the muggles but they knew that none of them were in any way equipped to fully empathize with what Tallis would face were a trial to ensue—even if he had his new identity to hide behind.
"However, I wish to ensure that everything has been perfectly arranged in order to snap the plan in place with little to no warning if need be. This will not be a powerful move if when we decide to implement it we need months to prepare. If we try to rush it then we will leave glaring holes in the process and we will be exposed, something that I do not wish to risk as long as Tallis is content with hiding the truth. Therefore, I wish to make all necessary preparations now. Does anyone know of anything we may have to do that we have not already done to protect Tallis' identity beyond any doubt?"
His words were met with silence as everyone sat deep in thought.
Hermione broke the silence. "I don't mean to state the obvious but we have the rather large problem of…well, the body. Not to mention the muggles will be able to testify truthfully that they didn't kill him. I assume that veritaserum works on muggles?" Severus nodded, jotting down some notes.
Ron turned a few shades paler. "We also have the problem that they will clearly remember our, uh, visit. And the…um, evidence of the visit no doubt still remains. Muggles can't fix that, can they?" Severus shook his head in the negative. Magic might be able to repair the damage but muggles could never do anything beyond a few surface treatments to make everything look as it once had. There was no way for them to truly fix what Severus had done.
Remus looked interested in this. "What visit? What happened?" He had been allowed to join the meeting today because he had made it abundantly clear to Severus that he placed his godson's wellbeing over any prior loyalties to Dumbledore. Like Poppy, he would side with Tallis no matter what side he decided to stand on, even if he chose to stand on his own.
"I decided to pay the muggles a small visit to thank them for their care of my son and gain official custody of him in case Dumbledore tried to take him from me. The muggle spoke one time too many and I castrated him," Severus said blandly, offering no details or explanation for his actions.
Poppy looked startled. She hadn't heard all of the details. Hermione too was a bit shocked even though she had long known that her Professor and the Weasley boys made a trip to see the muggles. She had always assumed that at least some violence ensued but she had never thought it would be more than a thorough beating. She hadn't expected anything that…permanent. Remus looked pleased. Evidently the wolf in him was satisfied with this punishment, at least as a starting point. "What did he say to set you off, may I ask?"
Severus refused to answer, not wanting the words to even come out of his mouth. He instead focused on the parchment in front of him, looking over the few notes that he had written down so far. Ron stepped in. "He implied that the Professor enjoyed the same sort of relationship with Har…Tallis as he had. He proceeded to offer him advice for, well…bedroom advice. It didn't sit well with Professor Snape." The women's shock at the Potion Master's actions was replaced by repulsion and a grim satisfaction that Severus had done as he had. A feral growl slipped from Remus at the mention of the muggle's words and he too looked immensely pleased with the rather fitting punishment.
Severus cleared his throat again. "All right. We are faced with creating a body, wiping memories and replacing them with memories of them murdering Tallis, at least potentially. There is a potential alternative but I am not certain it would be feasible. It would be very difficult but we could always create a golem and allow them to actually 'kill' Harry. Then we wouldn't need to fabricate memories."
"Making such a complex memory that was good enough to throw off any suspicion would be near impossible" Bill put in. "The small ones I made for the students were damn hard and they were nothing compared to creating a murder. Not to mention I don't fancy spending months making a convincing murder scene starring my boyfriend, especially knowing some of the things that they did to him that I would need to recreate. If there is any way to do this without making me create such a memory, please, please do it," he begged. He knew exactly what the muggles often did to Tallis and he was nauseated even thinking about recreating that on a daily basis for months to come.
"Sounds like a golem will be the best plan, regardless of how difficult it may be," Remus said. "If Tallis agrees then we'll also have his help and he is incredibly powerful." Hermione and Bill exchanged looks at that statement. No one knew the true extent of Tallis' power except for those who were present on the last day that he had tested it. A golem should be well within his abilities, even one good enough to fool the ministry if need be.
"Yes. Anything else?"
Poppy looked nervous for a moment, clearly uncomfortable with what she needed to say. She knew that it was incredibly personal but she was also aware that the people currently in the room were the closest people to family that her young friend had. They would help and support him in any way that they could and would be very discrete about it. "I don't wish to embarrass him at all but his scarring will be a problem."
"How bad is it?" Hermione and Remus asked at the same time.
"Bad. If anyone even looks at Harry Potter's medical chart and then does a scan of Tallis Snape then they will know without a doubt that they are the same person."
Severus closed his eyes. "What exactly needs to be fixed to avoid this? What scars can be convincingly said to be merely similar and what will give him away?"
"Well, at the very least I will need to vanish and regrow his left thigh bone, four of his ribs and almost the entirety of his left hand. It would probably be prudent to go ahead and do his right collarbone as well."
"Why those specific bones?" Severus cut in. "He's had quite a few more ones broken than that." He had studied his son's medical file closely and knew that the short list of bones that Madame Pomfrey wanted to regrow didn't even begin to touch the list of bones that he had broken.
"Many of Tallis' broken bones were clean breaks: they healed well even without proper medical attention, leaving little sign of a prior break. All of the ones that I listed were either broken more than three times each or else broken very badly and he received no medical attention at all. The bones re-knit poorly since they were healed by an untrained child's magic and nature herself."
Everyone shuddered for a moment, realizing that the breaks that she spoke of had all happened in a boy younger than eleven years old. Tallis had healed his broken bones with literally no magical training at all. They had been done poorly but they had been done nonetheless. "Once he got to Hogwarts I was able to help him, even if it was sometimes a few months after the initial break. There are ways to help straighten out a partially healed bone and to strengthen it. The right collar bone was my first attempt at that procedure and I was unable to heal it properly…the damage had been too great for my skill level at the time and by the time I was proficient at it the bone was long past the time that such a procedure would be helpful. Anything that happened before that though will be even more suspect."
Madame Pomfrey continued, trying to adopt a more clinical attitude in order to get the information out. She kept her eyes trained on the mini medical file that she had compiled from Tallis' enormous full one for the purposes of this meeting. "His left leg has been broken in four places, making it instantly recognizable. The ribs I mentioned earlier were all crushed at the same time, showing evidence that a single force had done it. It would be impossible for anyone else to coincidentally have the same break pattern there. His left hand was crushed by a blunt object a number of years ago. Again, this would be instantly recognizable. His right collarbone was broken in three places and healed very poorly because his magic was focused on healing more pressing needs. We would have needed to regrow his left arm but we have Mr. Lockhart to thank for doing that for us." She sighed heavily in the shocked silence that followed her litany of abuses. She knew that she needed to continue. "I will, of course, need to do something about the heavy scarring in his anus."
"Why didn't you do that before?" Hermione asked quietly. "Why leave him with the scars, especially the rape ones?" She sounded desolate. The list of abuses that the mediwitch had just made had shocked her deeply. She had always known that it was terrible for her friend when he was with his family but even with the information she had been given she had never been able to imagine it. Her family life had never been anything but happy and loving. She had, of course, known that her friend kept a lot from her but she had still assumed that she knew a fair portion of the details. She was quickly discovering that what he had confided in her was not even a fraction of what had really happened in that house.
"This kind of treatment should only be done once in a lifetime over a specific area, particularly one like that, and especially considering how bad the scarring was. I didn't want to do it earlier than necessary because if his uncle got to him again then I wouldn't be able to ever do anything about any new tears that were made. But now Severus has kindly taken care of the man for us and I am sure that Mr. Weasley can take due care with Tallis for the next few months while the tissue is still young so I am prepared to offer Tallis the treatment." Bill blushed deeply and Ron and Hermione snickered quietly.
Remus hid his smile behind his tea. He wasn't as close to Tallis as he wanted to be but the relationship that they did have was more of one between close friends or brothers regardless of the differences in their ages. It was not particularly paternal. Tallis had always shied away from developing that sort of relationship with him. He had assumed it was because he had lost Sirius but now he understood the true reasoning behind the boy's actions. He had no desire to push him on it and was content with their friendship as it currently stood.
"Alright then," Severus said, clearly wanting the conversation to move away from how rough his son's boyfriend may or may not get with him in bed. "Poppy will perform the treatments as soon as possible. There is nothing else that could be used to expose him?"
"Nothing from a medical standpoint. He still has the same blood type but that is common enough that it won't reveal anything. And you masked his signature, didn't you?"
"Yes, nearly a month ago. It will take another eleven days for any trace of the potion to have run through his system and then we will be completely safe in that regard. If in the next eleven days though anyone questions it and does a blood test then they will find trace amounts of the potion present and know that his current magical signature is not the one that he has always had." He had clearly been keeping a calendar running in his head, worried about making it through to safety.
"Tallis never told me that there was any danger of that," Bill said, worried now that he knew they could still be caught. "I thought once he took the potion he would be fine."
"You know he doesn't like you to worry, Bill. I'm sure everything will be fine. It is only a bit longer, after all. Dumbledore doesn't seem even remotely suspicious either" Hermione comforted him.
"Alright. Anything else?"
"His scent" Remus said suddenly. "That's how I knew that something was going on. I could smell Lily's scent mixed with someone else. I guess we won't risk too much though because I don't believe that too many werewolves were ever close enough to Lily to have taken her scent and that they would remember it after all these years. Werewolves generally only remember the scent of family and very close friends for that long. It even took me a while to place it and she was my best friend."
"How many other werewolves did Lily know?" Severus asked, growing nervous. If Lupin had discovered his son so quickly then someone else could too.
"None that I know of. If she had been near another werewolf while we were at school I should have known of it since I would have picked up on the scent immediately. But there were those few months that they were living in Potter manor and then when they went into hiding. When they were in the manor I only saw them every week or so and the scent could have faded by then, had anyone been there. I really don't know. I doubt that anyone could expose him through that but it is within the realm of possibility."
"What can we do about that though?" Poppy asked. "I've never heard of changing a scent."
"You can't. There are spells to mask it for a short time but nothing to change it. I'll teach Tallis the spells as soon as possible so that he has them."
They heard Tallis' bright voice outside the door, calling out a goodbye to Draco. Everyone immediately tensed. They hadn't realized so much time had passed. Remus banished the food and tea things while Severus lifted the silencing charms and impenetrable spells. Ron quickly pushed everyone into the kitchen and they stood there silently, hoping that Tallis wouldn't discover them. They wanted to make all of their plans and then inform Tallis that they were ready to move a bit further. Tallis would object to them putting so much time and effort into protecting him. He still had too little self worth to understand that they didn't mind the extra work if it meant that he would be safe.
They had done similar things with working on the Veyle Academy cover up. If Tallis knew the amount of work that everyone had put into that then he would have stopped them from continuing. This way he only saw the final few steps and thought that it wasn't too difficult. He hated the thought of anyone going out of their way to help him.
Ron decided to not take any chances on Tallis discovering them in the kitchen and he shoved Bill toward the door, with a hissed instruction to "keep him distracted." Bill fought a blush, knowing exactly how he planned to distract his boyfriend and also knowing that his boyfriend's father and godfather were in the very next room. He'd just have to move him to the bedroom as quickly as possible.
Tallis opened the door to the apartment and looked around the empty sitting room. Bill walked out of the kitchen, much to Tallis' surprise. "What are you—" He was cut off by an aggressive kiss as Bill pulled him tightly against his body, hands reaching down to stroke Tallis' firm ass. Tallis moaned softly into the kiss and started pulling Bill's shirt off. He managed to get it off in record time and he tossed it away from them as Bill moved his attention to his earlobe, worrying it between his teeth. Tallis pulled hungrily at Bill's long hair, begging for another kiss. He happily obliged, snaking a hand under Tallis' shirt and lightly brushing against his nipples. Tallis moaned again, louder. "My father?"
"Out" Bill said shortly, not elaborating at all. He twisted Tallis' rosy nipples harder, eliciting a deep moan. Tallis closed his eyes for a moment, relishing in the slightly rougher touches. "Open your eyes" Bill roughly said making Tallis force his eyes open immediately. He hated to do it but he knew that when he was more demanding like this that Tallis was in greater danger of slipping.
Bill spared a quick thought for the men and women in the other room, hoping that they couldn't hear anything but knowing that they likely could. There wasn't even a door to shut between the two rooms. "Bill, please" Tallis moaned. "Just fuck me here. I can't wait." Bill thought frantically. If Severus were truly gone he wouldn't have spared a second thought about having sex in the sitting room. Unfortunately, Tallis knew that, too. He needed to think of a good reason why they couldn't. He knew that saying he wanted to use the bed would be entirely too weak an excuse and Tallis would know that something was going on.
He spun Tallis around, pressing his slim back against his chest, pulling his ponytail to twist his head to the side. He attacked the offered neck with fervor, kissing and biting indiscriminately, making Tallis moan even louder. He always had been rather vocal. "No, I rather think I would prefer to take you howling over your desk. Your office is entirely too boring. It needs a good fuck to liven it up." He slowly unzipped Tallis' pants and slid his hand inside, lightly stroking his already painfully hard member. Tallis whimpered at the images that Bill's words evoked, thrusting into his hand. "Office. Now" he growled out, pushing Tallis toward the door. Tallis rushed down the hall to his office, stripping out of his clothes as he went and dropping them in his rush to be naked. Bill slipped off his belt and shoes, discarding them along the way. They made it to the office and slammed the door shut.
The group in the kitchen emerged cautiously, faces flushed. "Well" Ron said hesitantly. "It seemed a good idea at the time…"
Severus flushed a bit brighter and pointedly stepped over Bill's discarded shirt that they had seen flying through the air a few minutes earlier. "Well Weasley, you just ruined my office forever."
"Me?" Ron squeaked. "How was I to know they were such kinky buggers? I thought he'd take him to his room like any normal person."
Hermione started laughing quietly, Remus eventually joining in. "I guess it is fortunate that neither of you has office hours today" Hermione finally got out.
"Can you imagine some poor student walking in on that?" Remus howled through his laughter, Poppy and Ron finally joining in as well. Severus was the only one who was still completely unamused, although if truth be told he did find the situation slightly humorous. He just wished he didn't share the same office that Bill was currently servicing his son in.
Everyone quickly made their goodbyes, trying to ignore the clothing scattered through the room and hallway and slipped out of the apartment. Severus decided to follow suit and went to his private lab to work on a few potions.
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