The children were in their new room, plotting.

Or rather, trying to plot.

"I'm telling you she's evil!" Wednesday flatly.

Ellen rolled her eyes. "I'm all for pranking her, Cousin, but I still say that she's not evil."

"Yes," Edgar chimed in, "and what would she be doing here if she was? She's a nanny."

"So you're telling me that she doesn't seem . . . off to you, then?" Emily asked archly.

"I agree, you two," Eddie said, "that Debbie lady . . . Granpa would have chased her outta the house before she walked in the door!" Seeing Edgar open his mouth, "You can tell him you think he's paranoid, if you like. He and Grandmama are still home."

Edgar shut his mouth, thankfully.

"Why don't we just spy on the stupid woman?" Vendetta said, a very small amount less angrily than she normally did.

Wednesday nodded. "Seconded."

Harcourt smirked, "Thirded."

Emily raised her arm. "Fourthed."

"THOSE STILL ARE NOT WORDS, YOU STUPID PEOPLES!" Vendetta yelled at them.

"QUIET!"

The children glared at the door Debbie's voice came through.

"I agree, too." Pugsley said to no-one in particular.

Ellen and Edgar turned their heads to glare at Eddie, but he raised his chin defiantly. "I agree with them, something's not right about Debbie, and I think that we should spy on her."

Wednesday smirked. "Six to eight, cousins. I suppose we're spying, then."

Ellen sighed. "Fine. But if there's anything suspicious, you have to confront Blondie, but without giving us all away."

Wednesday nodded. "Deal. Now, here's how we're going to do this . . . "

The eight children were tucked around and outside of Uncle Fester's room, where Harcourt had found the nanny when he checked from the vents. He was still there, to the side of the room. Wednesday was painted to look exactly like the wallpaper, thanks to Emily's quick timing when Eddie 'fell down the stairs and hurt his knee' and Debbie had gone to go check on him. Eddie himself was hidden under the Invisibility Cloak that Harcourt had received earlier in the summer when Dumbledore's office was cleared out. Apparently he had some things from several old families. Not really anything important, like family spell books, but just things like journals and a few assorted items. They also got Lily and James Potter's wands, which Morticia and Gomez were taking out to get un-registered while they went on their walk.

Lovely thing, having money in America. Especially seeing as money was power, and they had it in both worlds.

Edgar and Ellen were hidden outside the windows, disguised as gargoyles, Vendetta was hiding behind a bushy plant about the same colour as her skin and only a bit lighter than her hair. Pugsley was in the suit of armour, and Emily was Disillusioned and hanging upside down above Debbie, close enough to see what she did, but not close enough for there to be a chance of Debbie touching her.

They couldn't untie Pubert, who was chained to the desk, but they could observe and listen.

"Mm mm mm mm! Fester Addams, my, my. Stocks and bonds… deeds… gold bullion…" Pugsley shifted inside the suit of armour, causing a squeak and Debbie looked around for a moment. "Treasury bills, IRAs…" Pugsley shifted again, causing another squeak. "What a strange old house. It's so drafty. It's really no place for children. No place at all . . . " Debbie murmured the last part thoughtfully.

When Debbie left with Pubert, all of the cousins congregated from their hiding places to the centre of the room. Wednesday turned to her siblings and her cousins. "Well? Do I confront her or not?"

The others nodded, but it was Ellen that spoke. "Yes, Cousin. Maybe you can get something more out of her."

Wednesday nodded.

Then she dragged Harcourt with her. Whether he liked it or not.

It didn't take long for the cousins to spread out to various places throughout the house, with Vendetta making fiends with Cousin Severus, Pugsley, Edgar and Ellen plotting . . . Something, probably not good, and Eddie and Emily playing with their pets together. They all thought that staying in at lest pairs would be a good idea, as they knew Debbie was up to something. They just had to find out what before they did anything that might have consequences. Or rather, larger ones than they wanted.

Wednesday and Harcourt stood on either side of the door as they heard Debbie muttering to herself and Pubert inside the nursery.

"Hold still, you little brat!" They heard her snarl to Pubert.

Now, while they and Pugsley may want the baby dead, they wanted to be the ones to do it! And besides which, the Evil One was an Addams! Their own flesh and blood! Only they could mess with him!

So, they came out, and let their presence be known.

"He's not a brat," they said together from the doorway.

Debbie whipped around to see the twins clutching one another's hands and glaring at her with otherwise blank expressions. Only their eyes gave away that they were less than happy. "Of course not, he's an adorable little baby."

"Fine," they told her, "Rub it in." There were several perks to speaking together when twins. Namely, freaking people out without even having to try all that hard.

"We're getting him all ready for a nice little walk in the park. Would you like to come with us?" The park. A walk. She was going to follow Uncle Fester.

"Are you a real Nanny?" they asked her shrewdly.

"Oh . . . What a question! Now how about that walk?"

She was really horrible at diverting attention from a subject.

"Why did you come here?"

"To take care of you, all of you," Debbie told them in a patronising tone, leaning down to their height.

"Especially our Uncle?" They turned away before she could answer, and walked from the room, not bothering to look back. That's what magic bugging could do. Speaking of which, they really needed to work on making Muggle things work.

When they got back to their nursery, they had Edgar and Ellen, the only ones with unregistered wands, put up a few strong privacy charms.

"Well, Cousins?" Edgar and Ellen asked them.

"We basically told her we knew she was going to go after Fester."

"WHAT? YOU STUPID, IDIOT IRRITATING - "

"Vendetta!" Emily admonished. Vendetta stuck out her tongue and grumbled; something about fiends eating people in their sleep.

"Yes, we did," Harcourt told them. "We figured that if she really was doing something, she'd get rid of us somehow. Probably not killing us, as she would die for it, but she would do something. If she doesn't do anything, we're wrong, and she probably won't do anything."

"And if she does something anyway?"

"There's eight of us, seven of whom are magical, and one of her, a Muggle. And we are highly able to fight in both worlds." Wednesday wasn't prejudiced at all, and frankly liked Muggles more than she did wizards, but every Addams was raised to be able to function in all parts of society, whatever world they were in, and that included the ability to hold their own against wizards, Muggles, and several species of creature, magical and non.

….

Harcourt and Wednesday glared at Debbie as she sent them to bed. Like that'd happen. They shook Pugsley awake and the trio crept down the stairs to Cousin Severus' Potions Lab. He'd been hiding there a lot this summer, and now was as good a time as any to find out why.

Wednesday crept in first, the door creaking quietly. "Cousin Sev? Cousin Severus?"

A snore greeted her. She looked over her shoulder and waved her brothers in. Creeping about quietly, she scanned the room for anything that might indicate what had cousin Severus in such a huff. There were some assorted potions, but nothing of real interest . . .

"You guys! C'mere!" Pugsley whispered to the twins.

"What?"

"I found his Pensive."

Harcourt pulled a bit of a face at that. "I don't know, Pugsley . . . Remember the last time we used a Pensive without asking? Grandmama wouldn't have anything to do with us for over a month!"

Cousin Severus Snored.

"Quiet!" Wednesday hissed. "If you're so worried, stay here and stand guard."

Harcourt gave her a Look. "Yeah, right. Like that's any better."

Wednesday rolled her eyes. "Just come on."

They each touched the Pensive with a single index finger and were pulled in.

"BRAT! Get your stupid arse down here before I haul it down myself!"

The three children stared in a fascinated sort of horror as they saw a miniature of their Cousin Severus practically fall down the rickety stairs of an ill-kept, cheap looking house.

"Yes Daddy?" The miniature asked fearfully.

The large man that had yelled slapped him. "YES SIR YOU ARROGANT LITTLE WHELP!" He roared, spit flying all over. Miniature Severus flinched.

"Yes-Yes Sir."

"Go make me my breakfast, boy!"

Miniature Severus bobbled his head quickly and ran to make the food.

And it went on. Pugsley, Wednesday, and Harcourt saw as Tobias Snape belittled, taunted, hit, and just plain messed with their cousin. They saw how Eileen, Severus' mother tried to stand up for the man, blaming herself and him alternately. They saw her teach her son magic, when Tobias didn't have friends over, until the lout caught them and made Severus watch as his mother was harmed in front of him, while the boy could do nothing. They saw Severus, Eileen and Tobias come to Addams Family reunions, saw Severus watch it all and pretend to be happy, saw him alternately watch Gomez and Fester in adoration, or hatred, or jealousy. They saw him love the Family and play with Fester, they saw him flirt with Ophelia Frump from down the lane, and tease Gomez, who had recently become engaged to her sister, Morticia. They saw his hurt continue into Hogwarts, where Harcourt's birth father and his merry band of delinquents tormented him, for just being there. They watched when he took solace in the friendship he had with Harcourt's mother, and how it bloomed on his part into something more. They saw him pressured by his House, saw him read about the then rising Dark Lord, before the man came out as a Muggle-Hater. They saw him cave, and call Lily a Mudblood. They saw her refuse to forgive him, saw his tormentors increase how much they hurt him, now that the object of James Potter's affections stopped protecting him. They saw him watch a boy transform into a werewolf and saw him come face to face with James Potter, who had been the one to pull him back. They saw Severus run away from home when his mother died, shot by Tobias on Severus' seventeenth birthday. They saw him take refuge with the Malfoy's, growing closer to Lucius, until Lucius took him to a Death Eater meeting, and he was marked. They saw him commit his first kill; the murder of his father, with the same gun that took Eileen's life. They saw flashes of these things, until they saw him overhear a prophecy and report it to Voldemort, before he realised that the Dark Lord would kill his first true friend. His first any kind of friend. They saw him beg Voldemort to spare her life, and they saw him put lilies on her grave. They saw him deny the Family, refuse invitations to funerals, weddings, get-togethers of any sort. They saw him teach Potions, and saw him grow from denial of the Family to hatred, blaming them for not rescuing him from his father's house, for his mother's death, and blaming himself for Lily's.

One of the last memories they saw was of the first Potions class with Harcourt and Wednesday. They could feel his dread, the memory was thick with it, and saw him restrain from flinching at the sight of the twins. Harcourt because he looked like James, but had Lily's eyes, and Wednesday because she was such a perfect mix of Gomez and Morticia, physical proof that the Addams did exist. And when they called him cousin, they could feel in the memory's air his guilt, multiplied tenfold because they still claimed him, before his anger took hold again, before he blamed the Addams for never bothering to care that his mother was dead, his best friend was dead, and that his father was a despicable, damned bastard. They witnessed Grandmama sticking him to the ceiling at the end of the year, and felt the betrayal he felt, as she was the last one he had still trusted with the name Addams. He had never counted Pince; she was never at Family events, and he never bothered to link her to his childhood.

"Are you enjoying yourselves?"

The trio whirled around to see Severus, his face ashen, his eyes burning with rage, and his hands trembling as he reached out and pulled them from his memories.

"I do hope that you've had your fun, as it is the last you will have this summer. Go to bed. The nanny has convinced your parents to send everyone under eighteen to Camp in a few days. Now get. Out. Of. My. Sight!"

The three children ran, their minds racing at what they had seen. Of course the things they had seen . . . It was the sort of thing they did as a prank, some of it. But . . . To Family? Who could ever do that?

They had a lot to think about as they went to sleep. It was only as they were finally drifting off that Severus' final words from the meeting of sorts caught up to them.

. . .

SUMMER CAMP?

AN/AR: I'm not really all that sure how I feel about Snape. I alternately love and hate him, or else I feel indifferent. He's layered enough that I can manipulate him to fit my needs, and for this story . . . Sorry, he's not a bad guy here, just a seriously messed up one. I hope you liked it, and thank you, Royslady51 for being completely BRILLIANT! Oh, and a little extra, consider this Addams-ish Potter 1.5, as it'll only cover the summer, and MAYBE the train ride. There'll also be one bit with the start of next summer, but it's tied into this plot, so if I want this complete, I'll have to post it here.. I'm then going to re-write Hogwarts meet the family so that I no longer completely and utterly hate it. I still plead sanity to that by the way.