Chapter Three - An Accident at Birth
"Dad?" Severus heard Sebastian calling him from the sitting room. Severus was in the kitchen, feeding Jacob his lunch.
"In the kitchen Seb, it's time for lunch!" Severus called back and set the two sandwiches down, one for his son and one for Draco Malfoy. Jacob was happily sitting in his high chair flinging scrambled egg around with his spoon.
"Coming!" Seb called, the previous cautious tone was gone and in its place was a delighted singsong and Severus had to lift an eyebrow at the sudden change. He was expecting some kind of catastrophe to have occurred.
Catastrophe averted Severus pulled out a chair so that he could eat his lunch as well, but as he looked up in the doorway to see the boys enter he dropped the chair and it fell onto its side. Jacob jumped at the sudden noise, his head jerked back and hit the back of the chair. The boy started howling and Severus ripped his eyes off the ghost and looked to his son, who had bitten his tongue: hard. Blood was poring from the baby's mouth and Severus swore.
"Sebastian! Why did you bring that here? Take it away now!" Severus refused to look at it again as he repaired his baby's mouth. He took out his wand and muttered a simple healing charm, the blood stopped oozing and Severus cleaned it away and then cast a slight numbing charm to take the rest of the residual pain away. The baby continued to whimper at the remembered pain and Severus picked the boy up and cuddled him close, Jacob buried his face in his father's neck.
When Severus looked up the ghost was still there, standing next to Sebastian, with Draco standing (more like hiding) behind Seb.
"What did I say Sebastian? Take that ghost out of here now! I don't want to see it." Severus was furious.
Sebastian smiled and Severus had never been so angry with his son before, "No, Dad. It's not a ghost. It's her, I promise."
Severus' rebuke died in his throat as his eyes travelled back to the woman. "Sebastian, are you sure? How could this happen?"
It may have seemed odd to other parents to so readily accept the word of their seven-year-old sons but Sebastian was different. Sebastian didn't lie, and Sebastian had an uncanny ability to always know the truth.
"I can't tell you that, you need to ask Dumbledore. But I am sure." Seb said softly, moving forward and holding his arms out for Jacob. Severus, not removing his eyes from his thought to be dead wife, placed the baby on the ground. Sebastian took Jacob's hand and led him and Draco away.
The kitchen was completely quiet as Severus took in the woman.
"Julia?" He finally asked, so quietly she barely heard it, but it was all she needed.
"Severus!" And she ran into his arms, nearly winding him but he caught her and his moment of hesitation passed as soon as he smelt her, smelt what he never thought he would again, and Severus closed his eyes. Even if this was just a dream it was so much better than his other ones, at least he could smell her this time. And she felt so real. He knew it would be more painful because of that when he woke up but he couldn't help it, for the moment he just wanted to pretend that it was possible for her to be alive and in his arms.
"Oh shit, sorry." Severus opened his eyes to see Silas standing awkwardly in the doorway. "I didn't realise you had someone over… I just heard Jacob crying is all." Silas scratched the back of his neck, his cheeks beet red.
Julia turned in Severus' arms to see Silas, and Severus begrudgingly loosened his hold on her, it was almost made up to him, however, when Silas's jaw dropped so low it almost hit the floor and then Silas hit the floor. He had fainted.
The next five minutes were spent waking Silas up and then when all three were settled on the settee there was only one question, spoken simultaneously by Silas and Severus, "How?"
Julia shook her head, confused. "I honestly don't know. The last thing I remember was crossing the road and turning my head to see bright lights. That's all, really."
"Perhaps, Severus, I may be able to offer some assistance." Dumbledore stepped further into the room, Seb, Draco and Jacob with him.
Severus frowned but motioned for the man to sit down. Jacob, uncomfortable with the strange woman in his home hid behind Dumbledore until he came close enough to make a break for it and run to Severus, burying his face in Severus' lap, crying until the man picked him up and allowed Jacob to bury his head in Severus' chest.
Severus looked to Julia, she looked shaken, confused and disappointed, his heart bled for her. The mother who'd loved Jacob so intensely before he was even born could not even look at the little boy, who was so painfully shy, without him crying.
"When Julia passed on, she did not in fact do so." Dumbledore began, "If she had been magical she would have become a ghost – but Julia was not – she was stuck between life and death."
"What? Why?" Julia frowned she didn't remember that.
"Because you had a purpose my dear," Dumbledore smiled indulgently. "There was a purpose that you had to accomplish but you could not do so without magic and so you had to die to gain magic."
Severus could not remember being more confused in his life. "She died so that she could get magic? And yet she wasn't really dead because she had unfinished business? But she couldn't become a ghost because she had no magic?"
"Precisely so my boy."
"Headmaster, I don't understand." Silas joined in.
"There are a few people born every once in a while that are born with specific purposes. Julia, dear, yours was to become a part of Severus' family, to care for and protect them. Especially your son, Sebastian." Dumbledore began again.
"Okay…?" Julia said.
"Sebastian is a very special boy, we all know that, but he was not always so, he was not born a seer or an empath. Sebastian was born a normal boy to his parents. After his incident with Voldemort Sebastian was not only physically marked, he became what we see today."
"But how?" Severus asked.
"That, I'm afraid I must confess I do not know, I only know that as Voldemort breathed his last Sebastian became something else."
"But he didn't!" Sebastian said suddenly.
"Who didn't what, Seb?" Silas asked.
"He didn't breathe his last." Seb smiled; as if this was the happiest proclamation he could have delivered.
Dumbledore smiled sunnily along with the child, "Exactly that Sebastian, Voldemort is still alive."
"What? Why are you so happy about that? How can that be?" Silas was growing hysterical, he was, quite understandably, terrified.
"Simple my son, Sebastian never fought Voldemort, Voldemort's own spell merely rebounded and not effectually at all, there was not quite enough power left in the spell by the time it got around to hitting Voldemort. It stripped him of his body but it didn't kill him entirely and it also removed most of his magic, so that the man had no ability to make an active comeback."
Severus nodded slowly, "But what does this have to do with Julia?"
Dumbledore looked to the man that he loved as his own and gave him a reassuring look, "As I said before Severus, Julia was born into this world to look after you and yours. She was born to vanquish Voldemort, for good."
"No way…" Silas gasped.
"How can that be? She has no magic!" Severus was growing angry in his confusion.
"That I'm afraid was an accident at birth, for reasons that I myself have trouble understanding Julia was born to the wrong parents, or her experience of life was such that it blocked her magic from developing as it should have. What was an accident at birth corrected itself when Julia died, she died so that she could be born again, as it were, and this time with her magic."
"But I don't understand? Why was I in that emerald coffin? How do you know? I don't have any magic!" Julia protested.
"You don't? Oh, my dear, you are very much mistaken. You are the most magically powerful being in this room. And the coffin? Well, dear, I put you in there myself. I knew what you needed to become and I made so that it was possible. The emerald coffin sustained your body so that when your spirit was ready it could be transferred to you again."
"But how did she get magic?" Severus asked, he put his hand on her knee and she clutched at his hand with her own.
Dumbledore gave him an incredulous look, "Severus, Julia has just spent eighteen months in limbo. As I am sure you know, limbo is entirely a magical plane of existence, how could she not absorb raw magic from a place such as that?"
"Can we just have a little clarification here! I'm so confused!" Silas was pulling at his hair, Dumbledore chuckled. "Okay, so, Julia was born with a disability." Silas began.
"I wasn't." Julia retorted.
Silas sighed, "A magical disability, in that she didn't have any and she was supposed to."
"Yes." Dumbledore answered.
"And she was born with the express purpose of protecting Severus and his family, and that means with the express purpose of killing Voldemort."
"Yeah!" Sebastian agreed, Dumbledore and the child shared comraderie smiles and Severus rolled his eyes – he knew that this would happen. Sebastian was already a mini-Albus.
"But because she didn't have any magic she had to die, so that she could absorb some magic and then be able to properly protect Severus by killing Voldemort."
"Exactly." Dumbledore said.
"Right, well I need a drink." Silas stood up and moved to the side board.
"Always good to see you drowning your confusion in alcohol." Severus said absently.
"Shut up. Do you want some?" Silas pored himself a healthy dose of amber liquid.
"Do you even have to ask?" Severus held his hand out for a glass.
"Good to know you're encouraging alcoholism, Severus. What else have you taken to showing our children while I've been away." Julia frowned.
"You say that like you've been on holiday." Severus took a sip.
"Well I kind of feel like I have." She responded softly.
"I certainly haven't." The bitterness would have been impossible to miss in his tone.
"I'm sorry." Julia whispered.
Severus looked up, startled by her words, to see her eyes filled with tears.
"No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that; it wasn't your fault. None of this was." Severus squeezed her hand. Jacob looked up from his father's chest and studied Julia for a moment before nodding and then drifting off into sleep. "It's nap time." Severus said, "I'll just go put him down."
"I'm coming." Julia stood up with him and followed him into the nursery. Those in the living room heard the door close.
"Lunch!" Sebastian announced and left for the kitchen with Draco to eat the temporarily forgotten sandwiches.
Silas was still standing by the sideboard, drinking. Dumbledore sat in his armchair and studied the young man before him.
"I know... I know you and Severus are close. I'm sure he's told you about my father." Silas wasn't looking at the man, just his drink, as he leaned against the sideboard.
"He might have mentioned him once or twice." Dumbledore said and Silas' head shot up.
"Has he told you that I've been keeping in contact with him?"
Dumbledore nodded, "He has."
"The last time I went to visit him, I wasn't supposed to. I mean it wasn't a scheduled visit. I just sort of felt like showing up." Silas spoke slowly, hesitantly.
"I see." Dumbledore said and Silas had the distinct impression that they were just words used to encourage him to keep talking.
"He was sick. He was lying in his bed, hooked up to these machines." Silas gulped. "Dialysis, they called it. His kidneys or something have given up apparently after years of abuse."
"Yes, I see."
"He – uh – he's dying. Apparently the only way for him to get better is through a transplant and they won't put him on the list because he did it himself, he made his kidneys pack in with all the alcohol." Silas sneered at his half empty drink and set it aside on the sideboard, but now with nothing for his hands to do he gripped the back of the couch. "And his wife isn't a match. And there's no one else. I offered, but he wouldn't even let them test me. He said he wasn't going to take that from me too. He didn't want me to ever think that he'd only wanted to find us so that he could keep living, he just wanted to make amends and then pass on."
The room was silent.
"But I – but I can't do that, sir. I need him. He's my father, and in whatever convoluted way I still love him and I still want him in my life."
"I understand." Dumbledore said.
"But there's nothing I can do about it anyway, I had them test me anyway, and I'm not a match." Silas looked up from his study of his hands and straight into Dumbledore's eyes. "I wanted to tell Sev, tell him that John was dying – but I can't. Everytime I get up the courage Sev changes the subject as soon as I start talking about the man." Silas took a deep breath, "Could you, maybe, tell him for me?"
Dumbledore watched the young man for a moment, "And while I tell your brother of your father's apparent imminent death would you also like me to ask him for his kidney for your father."
Silas paled at the old man's tone, it was frostier than he'd ever heard it. "No! That's not what I meant! Really it isn't! I mean John's my father, he's not Severus' and Sev's made that pretty clear! I would never ask him to do that!"
"But you'd ask me to ask him that?" Dumbledore kept pushing.
Silas was panicking, "No sir! Really not at all. He's not Sev's to save but I just thought that Severus should know. But I can't do it, because even if he did let me get the words out he'd only ridicule me for caring and berate my father. And I – and I can't take that right now." Silas' voice broke and Dumbledore's face softened immediately and completely.
"I understand. And I'm sorry, my boy, to be so harsh but I've hurt Severus far too many times in my life to be willing to do it anymore." Dumbledore confessed.
Silas nodded, "It's alright sir, I know you love him."
Hello, it's an early update but I just couldn't resist. I think there'll be about three more chapters, around that - so its not long to go before we wrap up with the Sebastian Snape trilogy. Exciting I think!
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please review if you have a moment.
Reviews from Chapter Two - Silas Recounts
dan4eva: Yeah I love Silas, in the last story 'A Fresh Start' Silas himself didn't have much of a role, but he's definitely a lot more relevant in this story, he's very important and I love the way that he goes about life. He's really a gentle soul but he's also strong if he really needs to be, sort off the opposite from Severus I think in a way. I mean Severus acts tougher than he is and Silas acts softer than he is. And those conflicts your looking forward to will feature heavily in the next chapter! Thank you so much for your review and for loving my stories!
LemonDropsWoolSocks: Ahahah I was sooo impressed with myself over that fact! People - especially YOU - were coming with all kinds of theories about Tobias and I was sure that somebody would guess that, but no one did! It made me laugh at the fact that I could actually hide something of my plot, especially when most of it is terribly transparent. I like the lovely comment, the glare, however, scorches a bit! How about Julia's rejuvenation or rebirth ahahaaahah! And I'm sure this chapter makes up for my little over sight in the last chapter, probably not adequately knowing you and your intense love for Severus/Julia but... I guess you'll just have to wait until next chapter for that! ahah! I know, I laughed when I read it back and realised what it sounded like and I was like 'should I take it out? Or leave it in?' And then I was like leave it in, maybe it'll make someone else laugh too! :D I like you emoticon indecisiveness, personally I don't think you can go past these ;) ;D, they're delightfully creepy! OMG! I want your socks! I want your socks! I want your socks! And I don't know about having Dumbledore for a father, maybe a grandfather, he's way too indulgent I think and also probably way to old too! I mean seriously he's like a hundred and fifty and I'm not even and eighth of that! ahahaha! I know! Sad Severus is good Severus! And I'm glad my stories are feel good stories, it's what I'm going for after all even though it makes heavy mention of dead people, evil people, scary people and dropped babies. ;) Very impressed with your perceptiveness missy! That's why I thought for sure you'd get Mrs Martin! And maybe Rocky and Mrs Norris will have kittens...
Mira SeverusSirius Black-Snape: I know right!