Whisper From the Crimson Deep

by corvusdraconis

S/SSHG, AU, Severus has an inkling that something isn't right, but he's felt like that all his life. (COMPLETE) (M) for themes

Summary: SSSHG, AU, Crack Severus has this inkling that something isn't right, but hell, his entire life he's thought that.

Beta Love: DragonandtheRose, Dutchgirl01, and a commandeered Hollowg1rl dragged kicking and screaming into the Oblivion of Corvus' brain.

---

Whisper From the Crimson Deep

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

― Albert Einstein

---

He saw her from across the room, and honestly, he could have been utterly blind and still feel her presence in the room. As she moved across the floor, her magic seemed to explore the room for her, tendrils of magic like serpents investigating every single nook and cranny while she appeared somewhere else. If her magic had done such things when he had been her teacher, surely Dumbledore would have had second thoughts saddling her with the Boy-Who-Lucked-Out-Far-Too-Many-Times and the ultimate fate of Wizarding Britain.

It was, perhaps, the tiny points of her delicate claws that he noticed first when she turned from her conversation with the Minister For Magic. No one seemed to take notice of her distinctly inhuman traits, but she gazed up at him with a knowing tug of a smile.

She knew that he saw her for who she was—

What she was.

Sanguini stood beside her, his pale face like porcelain in the moonlight, standing with just enough poise to remind those who paid attention to such things that he was not some member of the common rabble who had walked in off the street. It didn't take much for even the most gormless idiots to realise he was the type of being who was accustomed to being and was obeyed, even though he never seemed to lift a finger or even raise his voice but rarely.

While Lucius had always spoken in veiled threats, Sanguini rarely had to threaten anyone. Things simply were done—and that included the better treatment of the one who had stood by his side for a great many years.

Severus supposed it was a benefit of having lived for so long as he had. While Granger wasn't pushing a few centuries, she'd learned more than just Arithmancy under Sanguini's tutelage, but what that was, no one could say other than that Granger seemed to know everything.

That was hardly a change from when she was twelve.

Apparently, no one had been paying attention but her.

Admittedly, he hadn't helped any by belittling her at every possible opportunity in front of countless impressionable youths.

It was much easier to be cruel, he had found. Instinctive. Cutting.

He had found that he could take out his frustration and anger at himself and his past on random others, and Granger had been a most convenient target that was easily dismissed as "under the guise" of expectations. Truthfully, however, he'd been a complete bastard just because it had made him feel better. He'd had no reason to think he'd be lucky enough to have a life after the war or even that he'd manage to survive it, so he did what made a few minutes or seconds of his life better—

Now, faced with the fact that he hadn't actually died as predicted, he had to face the repercussions of his life's mistakes. While most of his life was in atonement for one particular mistake, he'd done enough to set him back a few steps for every step forward he did—something Albus had always been all too eager to remind him of when he'd started getting a bit too snappy with the manipulative old man.

Now, seeing Granger standing there silently, not at all like she'd been as a child, her eyes taking in everything as she feigned a polite interest in the Ministry matters, he realised what an idiot he had been when he'd dismissed her request to be his apprentice to learn the advanced art of potion making.

Under Sanguini's guidance, she had become a master in multiple areas, and her reputation for quality potions for many "puzzling afflictions" and "magical enigmas" he had never had the time or inclination to solve had become well-known in the potions community. Rumour had it she had infused her potions with the very complexity of Arithmancy, and perhaps she had.

Sanguini, apparently, had had no such problems seeing her enormous potential, and their subsequent apprenticeship had been almost a decade strong. After which, she had become the now infamous Lady Sanguini after a rather dramatic courtship thanks to a certain Ronald B. Weasley proclaiming that "his 'Mione" and he were meant, challenging Sanguini to a duel of honour upon a full moon on St George's Eve—the night when some say the Dark creatures rally more powerfully (even without the full moon) and when "witches" and vampires are at their strongest.

Severus wasn't sure which was more of the dooming factor for Mr Weasley, the date, the fact Sanguini was an ancient vampire or that Hermione was a witch. That particular date was, unfortunately for Mr Weasley, the one date when vampire law overruled the Ministry and the Wizengamot. And, as if to rub a little salt into that wound, Hermione Granger had just finished advocating for vampire rights to enforce their traditional laws upon their own kind as long as they followed Wizarding law the rest of the time.

All the non-humans were watching the then-Hermione Granger very, very closely because she hadn't stopped advocating for the centaur or the goblins. Vampires were the next logical step, but that made her very, very important to non-human societies.

She was successful, tenacious, and even more unfortunately for the Wizarding world's more stubborn prejudices, exceedingly well-read. She would've probably made an excellent barrister if she had chosen such a career, but Severus knew from her active circles that her tolerance for Wizarding law had ended abruptly after she'd represented the three non-human nations.

It was enough.

The only magical species that seemed to shun her and her efforts utterly had been the house elves. Apparently, they hadn't seen eye-to-eye since Hermione was a Hogwarts student, and the house elves did not forgive her for trying to "free them" by giving them socks. They could thank Dobby for that entire debacle.

Dobby was, for a house-elf, a prime specimen of utter idiocy. His wine had always come out either bitter or sour. He constantly burned the ironing. He tarnished silver instead of polishing it. It had driven Lucius into a state of absolute violence when Dobby had accidentally incinerated one of his peacocks and almost killed his wife (something that ended with Dobby having to remain with Lucius at all times when he wasn't performing a specific task.)

Granger, of course, hadn't known all the history. Dobby wasn't ever going to admit to such things, and then he found his champion in Harry Potter.

And, unfortunately, his death.

Snape sighed. House elves were unbelievably complicated creatures. Some—were indeed treated very poorly. Some, however, were beloved by a family going back generations. It wasn't something a Muggleborn was privy to know, usually. Unfortunately, even now that she did, the elves still hadn't forgiven or forgotten, and when people wanted to make her look like a fool, that was always what they chose to bring up.

To some, she would always be the oblivious Muggle-born witch.

But seeing her standing there with the Minister for Magic and Sanguini, it was easy to feel her command of the powerful magic that she held. Whatever Sanguini had taught her, he had left nothing out. A stark contrast to the way Severus was used to. Even his old master had held things back from him—not out of patience for the right skill but out of pure spite.

He was pretty sure that whatever Sanguini was teaching her went far beyond the scope of mere mortals. Whatever covenant had come along with taking her as an apprentice had not dulled with her achieving her mastery, either. Anyone who knew magic well enough could sense that bond's reach as well as its strength.

What was that old saying from Bram Stoker's Dracula—that strange perversion of the words of Genesis made for vampires—something about the blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh? Only it was her magic to his magic.

Maybe, he thought, it wasn't really a perversion at all. Perhaps, it was the very heart of intimacy on a level that he could barely even consider or fathom.

He felt a sudden stirring he hadn't expected—a pang of something he could barely put a name to, let alone acknowledge outside his own memories—memories of Lily.

Lily had been his sole focus for the majority of his youth, and as an adult nothing had really been allowed to change. His mistake had been a dark shadow that remained over him even long after her death. He had been unable to forget it, perhaps even unwilling to let it go. Nothing else could have prodded him into doing what he had done for as many years as he had.

If he had nothing to live for, he could have at least died for something significant.

Yet, he hadn't died. And in that void where Lily had always been, now there was confusion. Confusion and—

Impossible.

"Ah, Master Snape," Sanguini's voice was like crushed velvet gliding across raw silk. There was a trace of an accent under the impeccable British English—a hint of a personal history that had not been stamped fully out. His English was flawless, but in places, it was almost too perfect—the distinctive mark of one who had learned it in a perfected form and not from growing up with it.

"Ambassador," Snape said, straightening. The man's voice was a certifiable weapon, he was sure. Many said his voice was at the very least, his most striking asset. While he had his doubts on his own, he did not doubt that Sanguini's voice moved many mountains just by being exactly how it was. It did, in fact, move him in places that were not entirely appropriate for public Ministry affairs.

"My Lady tells me that you have succeeded in your trials with the cure for lycanthropy. How wonderful it must be to have the Ministry kissing your boots after so long denying you official recognition," Sanguini noted.

Severus tilted his head as he regarded Granger—Lady Sanguini. "Such news has not even hit the presses, I fear."

"In the journals," Hermione said, her voice pitched lower and slower than he remembered it. Was it maturity or something else? "The places that matter."

"I was not aware that my doings were being monitored," Severus said, slightly annoyed.

"There is being monitored and then there is keeping one appraised of important research," Hermione said quite matter-of-factly. "I assure you that I do not have you monitored in any way. You have not purposely set your name to any more than those who are able to read my recent work in the field should they be inclined to read.

Severus grimaced as he realised she was right. "I apologise. I am not used to people being interested in any field enough to—read."

Hermione closed her eyes, a slight chuckle escaping her lips. "It is alright. I grew up with peers who used books as bribery material rather than educational tools. Reading was limited to Quidditch and the Daily Prophet."

"Horrifying," Severus said dryly.

Hermione's lips quirked slightly. "Indeed. I'm sure that you experienced worse while teaching. I fear I do not have such formidable patience."

"Do not think I had any more squirrelled away in a convenient cupboard," Severus replied with feeling. "Believe me, if I had any patience at all, it was firmly stomped out within the first year of teaching."

Both Hermione and Sanguini tilted their heads down simultaneously, the same tug of a smile on their mouths.

"As I understand it, the Ministry is suffering its own bit of drama over your latest exploits at the Wizengamot," Severus noted.

"I'm sure they would love to make the entire situation with Ronald go away," Hermione said with a sigh. "But he did lose a fair duel in front of countless witnesses. Mihail was within all rights to do far worse to him than what he actually did. The only reason the Ministry is still fidgeting is because Molly Weasley keeps beating on doors and wailing at the main entry portal of the Wizengamot in the hopes that her cries will somehow reverse the decision, and no one wants to hear her shrill caterwauling anymore.

"What did you do to him, exactly?" Severus asked, his eyebrows furrowing slightly.

"He was turned into a Renfield and given to one of the youngest and least established vampires in the undead nation," Sanguini said. "It is customary amongst those as old as myself to give our thrall rights to the younger amongst us to assist them in tasks that would require more sun exposure than is healthy to them. There was, of course, the other choices of punishment I was entitled to: tearing out his throat, staking him out in the sun until his flesh fell off, the ever-tried and true burying him up to the neck in the desert and slathering his head with honey so the fire ants found him, scaphism in the style of the ancient Persians, drinking Hemlock, and, well, the list goes on and on. We do shun the more barbaric tortures of old, but we keep them on the list to put life in more perspective. There were more academic options. In-depth research projects, advocacy groups—what have you, but he picked what he did. Mind-boggling."

"Servitude over research and academics. The horror," Severus snorted.

Hermione had her eyes closed for some time and then opened them, her head jerking up. "He would rather be a thrall and be the hapless victim in his mother's eyes," she said. "He thinks that will make it so he doesn't have to take any blame for what he does."

"As a person who had been under the thumb of two rather notorious people, I can say with conviction that what he thinks he wants is not going to bring him any peace of mind," Severus said.

"It is indeed regretful that this was the case for you," Sanguini said, his eyes flicking over to look Severus in the eyes.

Severus found it unnerving, as most people did not look him in the eyes for any reason unless they were specifically trying to get him to look away.

"Have you checked to make sure there are not any lingering side effects to your servitude to such—people?" Sanguini asked.

Severus frowned. "Not since they died, no. Death cures all ills."

Sanguini's expression seemed to harden. "From personal experience, I can assure you that death does not cure everything. Some things follow you even from beyond the grave."

For a moment, Severus saw Sanguini in a different place. The vampire was sitting in a darkened room barely lit by candlelight. His fingers were steepled, and the candles flickered, making his pale skin seem ghostly and ethereal.

---

"Death does not cure everything, old friend, some things follow you beyond the grave. You do this, and it will break her heart."

"I must do this, or the entire Wizarding World is going to implode."

"It does this every century."

"Not like this, Mihail."

"We have only just forged our triumvirate, Severus. You do this so soon—there is no telling what it could do to the bond."

"My love for you both is true. You know this."

"I never doubt it," Sanguini replied, "but I fear for what conspires against us in this compulsion of yours to help a group of people who would rather die fighting us than accept help."

"I cannot simply ignore that they are tromping around our front door as it were, meddling in our lands, killing each other for whatever idiotic reason."

"They just exchanged pitchforks and swords with wands," Sanguini argued. "It is the same."

Severus shook his head. "This feels different, old friend. It feels like a great war. A long one."

Sanguini closed his eyes. "What of her?"

Severus grimaced, a hint of fang showing. "Leaving you both to your own devices for anything over a decade concerns me the most. The decorating, most of all."

Sanguini fffted, waving his hand. "I have excellent decorative style."

"For a Georgian or Victorian, perhaps," Severus muttered. "I'm sure the library will be sorted in alphabetical order and archived with the Dewey Decimal Classification numbers done in immaculate bookplate on the protective wrappings."

Severus closed his eyes. "Do not think that I do this lightly. The last thing I want to do is leave our marital bed so soon with the one creature on Earth that can tolerate my snark and your flamboyance in the same living space."

"If anything were to happen to you, it could affect our triumvirate," Sanguini reminded him. "Especially so soon after consummating it. She is still sleeping off the honeymoon, as it were. WE should all be. It wouldn't hurt to sleep down in the Earth for a decade or two and cement our bond so no creature, mortal or otherwise, could possibly break it."

"She's always been more sensitive to the thrum of the Earth," Severus said, his harsh scowl softening slightly. "I know this is a truly horrible time, Mihail, but if this mortal is to be believed, the threat of a Dark Lord rising could make trouble for both humans and our kind, the goblins—any who are different from the group deigned superior by blood or magic or both."

"And who is this contact who believes they know more than our network of contacts around the world?" Sanguini asked, his dark eyes intent. A flash of red and gold shimmered across his eyes as his power awakened.

Severus raised one hand, spreading his fingers. "He is a human magical. He goes by the name Albus Dumbledore."

Sanguini's lips formed a flat line. "I do not trust that one."

"You barely trust anyone with a pulse," Severus observed, arching one ebony brow.

Sanguini straightened his shoulders and spine and let out a huff of air. "Can you truly blame me? They nearly murdered our love before we could even find her, let alone court her, and she was always the advocate for peace amongst our peoples."

Severus grimaced. "I have not forgotten. If our people are to have peace, we must found it by setting the proper groundwork for it. It cannot exist in a vacuum."

"People usually desire riches and power, rarely ever do they wish for peace," Mihail said sombrely.

"If we do not at least allow them the opportunity to prove us wrong, we are no better," Severus noted.

Sanguini bared his teeth and shook his head fiercely. "You will do what you want regardless of what I say," he said. "Do not think this constitutes my agreement to your plan. I am telling you trusting this Dumbledore is folly, and you will flagellate yourself if harm should come to our mate when this plan of yours backfires."

"I am doing this so that no harm will come to either her nor you," Severus said grimly.

"And what of you, Severus?"

"I have not survived for this long only to fail now," he replied, his voice a bare whisper.

Sanguini closed his eyes. "We all fail eventually. It is only a matter of when and how many we take with us when we fall.."

---

Agony.

Agony like nothing he had ever felt before—not even from the time when he had fought in the wars with a gladius in one hand and a scutum in the other.

"I'm terribly sorry, Severus, but you were right. You will be the perfect pawn with which to thwart Tom—but this is sure to be quite a long game, I fear. I will need you to be perfectly set to play your part, and you will be perfect. No one knows you, and no one will recognise you—"

Severus screamed hoarsely as his blood was sealed by some insidious, yet innocuous-looking device in the old wizard's aged hands—a crystal? A figurine? He couldn't tell. His bloodline's powers fought frantically like a drowning cat as it was forced behind the cruel bars of suppressive magic.

Blood magic.

He felt his bond to his triumvirate stretch and tear from its anchors. He felt the gaping chasm forming between the familiar and everything he had ever loved.

His hand tightly clutched the moon lily pin that his beloveds had given him as a token of their love in their moonlit wedding.

Mihail, old friend, you were right, and I'm so sorry.

He screamed again, his soul ripping into razor-edged pieces of agony.

Hermione. Please forgive me my shameful arrogance.

The very last thing he saw was the glimmering moonlily in his hand as he crumpled and collapsed onto the floor.

"Love," he whispered. "You."

The lily shattered into a burst of magic, trickling like blood in his hand to stain the floor with drops of glistening crimson.

---

"Are you a friend of Da's?"

The pale-faced man stood in the setting sun, the sunlight wreathing his body in a halo of colour that made him appear angelic.

His expression seemed sombre and melancholy before there seemed to be a twitch of anger on his mouth. The man seemed to grimace, and for a moment, Severus thought the man might have had fangs.

"No, child, I am not," the man said.

His voice was a purr of velvet softness with a rumble of distant thunder.

It seemed familiar. More familiar than his mum or his da—

"What is your name, child?" the man said.

"Severus," he answered automatically. It was polite to answer your elders. "Severus Snape."

"Pleased to meet you, Severus Snape."

"Boy! What have I told you about being out where decent folk can see you!"

Severus cringed, scrambling backwards and covering his head. "I'm sorry, Da!"

A shadow swung over him.

Severus froze and waited for pain that didn't come.

Cautiously, he peeked out from between his too-thin fingers.

The stranger had his Da's fingers clenched firmly in one hand. His father was down on his knees as his left hand vainly struggled to free the right from the other man's punishing grip. The stranger's expression did not change. For just a second, his perfectly white teeth flashed.

"You will not raise a hand to this child," the man growled lowly. "And every single time you wish to do any sort of physical violence to anyone, you'll find you have a sudden pressing desire to clean the house from top to bottom with your own hands—" The man's eyes seemed to glow like banked flames in the darkness. "While singing Wagner."

"Yes, Master," his father grovelled obsequiously. "Anything for the most wondrous and merciful Master."

The stranger's nose wrinkled as he caught the scent of alcohol on his Da's breath. "And every time you feel the desire to drink alcohol, you will tell your family of your appreciation for their being in your life instead and then take a most thorough shower."

"Yes, Master," Tobias said as he dangled helplessly.

The stranger grimaced and dropped Severus' father as one would a hagfish.

Severus stared up at the ethereal stranger, his black eyes wide with amazement. He plucked one of the moonflowers growing on his mum's hedge and handed it to him.

The man grasped the flower delicately between two fingers and brought it to his nose. His expression softened. "Be well, child," the man said.

Severus turned, expecting his father to cuff him smartly for displeasing him, but found his father was busily scrubbing the front windows to a moonlit polish. He turned back to find the stranger was gone.

Not a sound carried his footprints.

---

Severus saw the guest arrive at Slughorn's party and experienced a strange sense of disquiet.

He looked oddly familiar.

The man said almost nothing, simply watching the other attendees, nodding politely during the conversation. He spoke only when spoken to, and even then, he said very little but spoke in perfect English. The witches were all fawning over him like he was Merlin's gift to the Earth, and he'd have given Lucius a run for Prince of Slytherin if he had any interest.

Immaculate.

Highly chiselled features.

A voice that seemed so achingly—familiar. Painfully, like almost remembering something that swam in his grey matter but never quite reached it. For a moment, he forgot all about Lily chatting it up with the other talents Slughorn had gathered. He stared at the man's hands, watching the candlelight play upon his pale skin, and he found himself wondering what such flawless skin would feel like.

Severus shook his head, feeling utterly confused. He found the man—Sanguini, Slughorn had said—looking back at him with a slow, feline-like blink. He inclined his head slightly in polite acknowledgement, and the witches all gasped and stared at him like they wanted to know what he could've possibly done to garner the handsome man's attention.

Severus found the blood rushing to his cheeks, and he jerked his head to look at the back of Lily's head. The moment he did, all other thoughts trickled away but not before one confusing mental image caused his blood to rush to his extremities with all due haste.

Just for a moment—

He saw himself in the moonlight—taller. Older.

Hair longer.

He and Sanguini bit their hands and folded them together to let the blood trickle down as they brought it to the lips of a lovely curly-haired female. He cradled her as she accepted their offering, even as she bent her own neck in invitation.

He felt a hardness in his mouth as a burning ache grew there.

He and Sanguini struck at the same time in different places, and the female let out a soft moan of unmistakable pleasure.

"Severus," she whispered. "Mihail."

Lily.

There was only beautiful, flame-haired Lily.

His thoughts were consumed by Lily even as one of his hands fisted, the nails digging deep into the soft flesh of his palm.

---

Lily was dead.

Dead.

Dead because of him.

The pain made him seem like he was dying.

His fault.

His fault.

Dead.

He only vaguely heard Dumbledore saying something to him.

He straightened, eyes clear.

He would do what he had to—to make up for his sins.

For Lily.

---

He was so damn angry.

Potter's boy was a sodding menace.

The others thought him bright but in dire need of encouragement, but he saw his father in almost everything he did.

Then he saw his eyes—

Lily's vivid green eyes.

He saw a flash of a lily in his hand, felt the remembered, all encompassing love.

Love.

Absolute devotion.

But when he tried to put a face to it—

Lily.

It was only Lily.

He would save the foolish boy— even from his own rampaging Gryffindor stupidity.

---

He lingered over the infirmary bed, the bottle of antidote held in his hands. His brows creased together as they met, his lips turned in a frown.

Familiar.

She seemed—so achingly familiar.

A laughing female, a woman grown—talking in Greek to a winged horse as they met in the moonlight. She led the beast to water where the full moon had cast its silvery radiance down upon the mirror-like surface.

She wore the white silken robes favoured by one of the temples. A priestess—

"You can bring him water," the woman said, her musical voice like a song in the night to his ears.

He fumbled awkwardly, unused to being seen. Unused to being—caught oogling.

He transfigured a stone bowl out of a rock and scooped some of the moonlit water with it, bringing it over. The thirsty pegasus sucked it down almost comically fast, kicking one of its brethren aside to go get their own share of moon water. The other pegasi snorted in clear irritation, the water in the bowl obviously more valued than the stuff taken straight from the lake.

The woman laughed, conjuring a few more bowls and holding them out. Each pegasus snuffled and drank from her bowls, waiting somewhat impatiently for the pleasure of her offering.

He awkwardly brought over more water, and he gained himself his own line of thirsty pegasi.

"They aren't like Abraxians," she said. "Those are a perversion of an ancient line. These fine beasts are blessed by the great god Poseidon—supposedly sprung from the fallen body of the slain Medusa—but as we know there is both truth and fiction in all mortal stories. Ever more so the myths of a ruling society."

"Painting the male gods as unable to control their libido just so a mortal can claim they are descended from the gods," Severus scoffed.

"Mmhmm," the woman agreed, her brown eyes sparkling. "While there is something to be said in that the gods have their own problems just as mortals do, reality rarely makes a great ballad or epic tale." Her voice was heavily accented English, drenched in Greek, but it pleased him. Both he and his old friend, Mihail, had learned English together as they learned all languages. It wasn't like they didn't have the time. They, however, tended to learn their languages from scholars and the learned, and he could hear traces of that in the woman's accented English.

"The old tales tell of a great beast that lurks beneath the mirror lake, waiting for those unwise enough to come to the edge and drink. While I have never seen it, the pegasi have the instinct to avoid the edge no matter how thirsty they might be. We, at the temple, ensure that they can drink their fill upon every full moon. By the third night, they are appeased, and they need not return until the following month."

A little filly thumped her head into Severus' side, toppling him over.

He gave an indignant outcry as he fell only to be eagerly snuffled by young pegasi.

The woman laughed, but she extended a hand to him. "They are but children, regardless of their form."

Severus blew his hair from his face and shook his head. He accepted her offered hand and felt a powerful jolt of warmth unlike anything he'd ever felt, save with Mihail.

"I am Hermione," she said as she cleaned him off with a warming and cleansing spell.

"Severus," he returned, his voice sounding strangely awkward and unsure.

"You are Mihail's old friend and companion," she said. It wasn't a question.

He blinked. "I fear that you have me at a disadvantage, Priestess Hermione."

"Many have come to the temple of Athena to pray and give offerings, friend of Mihail. Especially those who have witnessed its erection from the very beginning."

"I have heard that they are building an even greater temple to Athena in Athens," he said.

"Bigger, better—hard to say," Hermione answered. "It will certainly attract more visitors, and that will bring more of the faithful our way. That in itself will please the gods, however, for matters of faith I am content with smaller and more commonplace miracles."

"They say Pericles is too ambitious in his desires for this 'Parthenon' as he is not even a magical being. This monument is to be built with manual labour."

"Perhaps it is not about efficiency so much as encouraging the entire city to take part in its creation. Think of all the crafters and artisans whose work will go into it. Engineers. Thinkers. Trade. That is a testament to the goddess as much as prayer in Her great city of Athens."

"Perhaps," Severus conceded.

Her smile was like the rising sun, and for that instant, he believed himself truly alive. His heart beat wildly in his chest as it shook off the cobwebs that covered it. He could feel Mihail's rumble of pleasure through their bond and his insufferable curiosity as he recognised just who Severus was spending time with.

"Shall I set the guest table for three?" Hermione asked as she pet one of the pegasi on its velvety nose.

Severus blinked and swallowed, completely taken off-balance by her forward observance.

"Three," he whispered.

"Excellent," she said. "Do have Mihail bring some of that delicious ciorbă de burtă he makes."

Severus blinked again, his mouth slightly open like a gawping goldfish.

"I find it quite amusing that he makes the best mujdei," she said with a smile. "Tradition would day he would surely be averse to the use of garlic, but I find the flavour and odour rather heavenly in food."

"I will," he said quietly, "tell him." He relayed the message mentally.

"He says to make sure there are dolmades on offer."

"Of course," Hermione said. "And I will make patina cotidiana and perhaps savillum for you, hrm?"

Severus felt the tremble of Mihail's anticipatory hunger even as his surprise sent a rush of blood to his pale cheeks. She knew? Was his accent showing? How well did she know Mihail? How had he never heard of her? The very thought of food from his motherland made him nostalgic, remembering a time when he was still a mortal man.

He hadn't felt such fluttering in his stomach since he'd met Mihail. He'd taken him off his balance, too. What did this mean?

He looked at her face, her brown eyes glowing a golden amber in the moonlight.

She might as well have been the flame and he the moth.

He would immolate himself upon her flames.

---

"Marry us," Severus whispered softly.

"Be our mate," Sanguini purred in her ear.

"Complete our triumvirate."

"Who else to keep Mihail on his toes?"

"Who else to tease Severus about his dreary fashion sense?"

The two elder vampires passed her an intricate moonlily crafted seemingly of moonlight and the shimmering depths of the cosmos.

Her eyes glistened pink with salt and blood. "Me?"

"Do you see any other we could possibly be addressing?" Severus murmured tenderly.

"Could be someone else," Hermione whispered.

"There could never be," Sanguini said.

"Anyone else," Severus completed.

Hermione looked up to the full moon, a trail of tears trailing down her cheeks. She reached the moonlily up to the heavens.

"Athena, please bless this symbol, this joining of three under Your wisdom. May it guide our steps, inspire us in peace and war, kindle our creativity, and weave our souls together as the silk's warp and weft. May our lives be at peace, but our minds remember the art of war. May this symbol bloom in your grace as we grow under Your glory. May we thrive under the veil of mysteries but follow your beacons to enlightenment. May we find success while under Your gaze but humble ourselves in Your inspiration."

"I swear to you, under the moon and Athena, to stand by your side until Hades calls us Home."

Both Severus and Mihail repeated the words.

She opened her hand to show the moonlily had been replicated into three pieces, and they glided to adorn each of them in a different way. Mihail gained a shimmering earring that hugged his outer lobe. Hermione had a lily set in her sternum, mystically fused to be flush with her skin. Severus set the lily on his collar, covered by his hair but for the stir of wind that set it gleaming with ethereal magic.

Sanguini held a glistening chalice, and they all used their index claws to slice across the other's palms. They mixed their blood together in the swirl of the chalice and drank of the contents, one after the other.

And then there was a lot less talking.*(isb)

Mostly.

But the Muggles did report of a rather extraordinarily vivid Northern Lights display—all around the world.

---

Severus saw the glint of the magical petals in Granger's chest. They glistened, seemingly unfolding as he gazed. He reached his fingers out—

His eyes suddenly seemed to clear as he took in her childish features.

Whatever had happened to his priestess?

"Hermione," he whispered softly.

His brows knit together as he grimaced. He went to bite his wrist—and frowned as his fangs did not come to his beck and call. He saw the vial of potion in his hand—

He sniffed it, frowning harder as his senses seemed strangely dulled and stunted. What was wrong with his body? Why was his mate—a child?

Where was Mihail?

Why couldn't he sense the triumvirate?

Growling with frustration, he sliced his hand with a sharp wandless spell, pressing the blood to Hermione's lips. There was more than one way to give her the blood that would heal her much faster than a potion.

As the blood passed her lips, she began to stir. Her eyes opened, and she stared into his face. Her hand reached to touch his face. "Severus."

"Why do you look so very young?"

"When you lost your age, we all started to lose years. I took them all, sealing myself off from you and Mihail to save him from the curse."

"Curse?"

Hermione's face twisted with pain. "You won't remember us tomorrow."

"I could never forget you—"

"You're being forced to."

"Why were you petrified? We can't be—"

Hermione's expression shifted into a grimace. "The price of being cut from our true natures. Mihail is safe."

"You are mortal now?"

Hermione nodded.

"No!" Severus argued. "Have him Turn you back at once!"

"I don't want to be an adolescent forever, Severus. I would rather die," she said with humour.

His eyes flicked. "Where in the Nine Hells are we?"

"Hogwarts."

"We're at a magical school?"

"You're a teacher."

"Don't be absurd, I utterly despise imbeciles."

She placed a gentle hand on his cheek. "Oh, Severus. I've missed you so."

"Wait, why are you here attending a magical school? Why are you not with the Council?"

"One, mortal. I don't want to be a teenager forever. Growing up twice was humbling enough. Being stuck as one is a clear no. Two, even if you don't remember me, I want to be close to you. Someone has to be here looking out for you, even—even if you don't know it."

There was a noise—someone was coming.

Hermione's face twisted in agony. "I love you."

"Wha—" Severus gasped as Hermione hastily shoved him backwards and played dead on the bed, her hand quickly jerking over her chest to cover the moonlily.

Severus' expression twisted in confusion as his thoughts fogged and all he could see for a moment was the image of a lily in his mind's eye. Its delicate petals seemed to close.

"Lily," he whispered.

He shook his head, jerking violently. The tiny vial of cure almost dropped from his hand as Poppy Pomfrey walked into the infirmary.

"Oh, Severus, do you have the remedy, excellent."

Snape's lip curled in disgust. "For all the good it will do you. These imbeciles will just crawl back into danger again and again."

"Severus, this is the next generation! You could be nicer!"

"Gods help us all if this is what we are relying on to represent us," Severus snarled viciously. He slammed the vial of potion down on the bedside table and stormed out, his robes billowing wildly behind him.

Poppy rubbed the space between her eyes with her fingertips. "He's such a horrible, miserable excuse for a man," she groaned. "Brilliant but terrible."

As Poppy turned, she saw Snape blow past the Headmaster in an angry huff, stalking off without a single word.

---

Snape could not see after staring into Lily's eyes on Potter's son. His eyes were wide open, but he could not see a thing. Something was being pressed to his lips.

Cold.

Wet.

Ground bezoar mixed with a double-strength Dittany potion.

Something pressed securely against his throat.

"The snake bit him."

"Curse Dumbledore and his sodding seal. I'll drink out the poison. Feed him the human-grade potions. Our blood will do nothing to him in this sorry state. You, at least, can still heal from the blood. Dumbledore has him so locked away from his own power that he can't even heal from blood."

He felt a soothing warmth as someone was—sucking?—on his neck. He felt something being pressed to his mouth as a hand gently stroked his neck to make his swallow reflex trigger. He swallowed hard, feeling a twinge of agony as the torn flesh of his neck reminded him that he had been savaged by the fangs of a giant reptile.

"This venom is utterly foul," the voice said. He heard someone spitting.

"Take my blood."

He heard the rustle of fabric and a cork being popped and the sound of someone swallowing. "Ugh, human potions always taste like bile."

There was a long pause and a quiet grunt. "Thank you. I think I can stomach that disgusting venom now."

Severus felt like he was floating in warm water.

"He's going to survive, my love."

"He's done so much. He must come back to us."

"Ironically, he's done all that he set out to do, albeit in the most torturous way possible and entirely without the support he should have had all along."

"He did have our support."

"As much an infrequent visitor and forced child could possibly help such a tortured and guarded soul who quite understandably trusted no one."

He heard a sigh. "He still won't remember us. After this is all over, I will try and reestablish a rapport that we can bring him back to himself, but—"

"I know. Without knowing where Dumbledore anchored the curse, we are not going to get far."

"I miss him."

"I do too, my love. I miss all of us together."

"Athena teaches that wars must be waged with wisdom."

"Blind hatred never lasts very long. Constructive hatred requires focus." *(DtS)

"I have quite a bit of focus."

"I will take him to a place where he will be tended to and not murdered before the war's truths are fully exposed."

"I will meet up with Harry and Ron. They are going to need my support before the end of this."

"Be careful, my love. Severus will be very perturbed if you should die so close to the end of this dance."

"And you, beloved?"

"I would most definitely consider pulling an Orpheus only not be stupid enough to look behind me until I was sure you made it back from the Underworld."

"You never do anything small."

"Nothing about me is small."

"Pfhsth, go! Take Severus to someplace safe. Don't let your swollen head get stuck in a door or sunny windowsill!"

Severus felt himself being lifted as the familiar pull of an Apparate transported him to somewhere unknown.

---

"It is bad enough that I have Potter coming to check on me every bloody week making doe eyes at me in the hopes I will tell him more about his mother, Miss Granger," Severus snapped, his black eyes fierce. "I will not even entertain the idea of having you underfoot as an apprentice and stuck in my life for the next few years."

"I think you will find I am not the person you remember as a student," Granger insisted.

"I am not a pet project to be fixed and paraded around as some accomplishment to add to your war heroine credentials, Miss Granger," Snape snarled. "Find some other brooding bastard to pester with your incessant hand waving and ten-foot-long essays on agrimony."

"But—"

"Take your piles of books and your buck teeth and leave me alone, Miss Granger. I have nothing to offer you."

She closed her eyes, and Severus felt his lips curl into a tight smile of satisfaction at the thought he might have gotten one final tear from her as he firmly shoved her out the door. Her skin seemed to go impossibly pale. There was a glimmer of light from her eyes, a hint of pure gold slipping through the gap between her eyelids. Her fingers tightened into a fist just enough to scrape the desktop with a strangely loud scratching sound.

Suddenly, she stood up perfectly straight, her skin back to what seemed like it came from a Muggle travel poster advert for some exotic island holiday spot. Her head tilted upward with a strangely imperious tilt that seemed more appropriate on a Malfoy than on his former student. The tug of a smile pulled at her lips, and he saw an older, practised confidence that belonged to someone that was not a barely practised student who had not finished her seventh year.

"When you feel like reconnecting," she said. "You need only ask."

"And why would I ever wish to see you again, Miss Granger?"

"One day, you'll be tired of being chained to a past that isn't truly yours," she said. "And you will see things that there are no other explanations for. You will remember things for no other reason but one. And when your heart burns with anger for what you have lost, then you will know how to find me."

"I look forward to not seeing you ever again, Miss Granger. And you can tell Potter that those memories he apparently shared with everyone were not meant to be put on public display."

Hermione's smile did not reach her eyes.

She placed a vial down on the desk. "Harry wanted to show everyone at the Wizengamot, but he couldn't get the vial open. They had to go on his word on what he saw. For the record—"

She pulled out her wand. "I do solemnly swear that I have not viewed the memories in this vial, nor have I pulled the memories out of Harry Potter's head." Her wand flashed a brilliant blue and faded.

"And how would I even know those memories are mine?" Snape snapped at her. They could be yours."

She arched a brow at him. "You open the vial and look."

"You said Potter couldn't open them."

"He couldn't."

Snape's eyebrows furrowed.

"He was not you."

"I was the one who gave him the vial, Professor. I enchanted it so it would not break because boys break everything. I also put a time limiter on the seal for the vial so after a few days—the time it would have taken for things to die down enough for someone somewhere to ask Harry for your memories—to not be able to open it anymore." Her face was unnervingly calm and, strangely, held no expression at all. It was all very matter-of-fact.

"And what if I were dead, and they needed proof of my deeds?"

"Your death would have voided the seal. The condition was to remain locked while you still remained alive."

"And you had the sudden wherewithal after being on the run under great pressure to just—think about my privacy."

"I've had a lot of time to think about privacy, Professor," Hermione said. "Being trapped with two young wizards full of testosterone for the greater part of a year who barely managed to not kill themselves with aggressive pent-up emotions as a baseline."

"The vials were already charmed," she continued, "to be unbreakable because I could not afford to lose them to accidents, as was the seal. It was just a matter of changing the parameters of the seal."

Snape scowled at her. "Insufferable know-it-all as always. Get out."

Hermione's eyes cast down as she inclined her head just a little. "Adío, pseehee mou. Herome pou den ehees pleegothee."

Severus stared unseeing at the empty place that Granger had left behind. The sound of the language he didn't know sounded strangely familiar as if he should have known it. Her voice had taken on a musical cadence that was not of the Queen's English. It resounded like a gong within the yawning chasm of emptiness that was left behind when Lily died. He winced, a sudden pain so acute that it bled into the physical.

—-

"Dragul meu," a low male voice murmured against his ear as a shiver of pleasure shot from head to toe.

They reached together for their beloved priestess as she skillfully dodged their lustful mischief.

"She is but a magnificent pegasus straight from the herds of the gods!" Severus heard himself curse.

"Then we must lure her in with the safety of our embrace and the pure moonlit water that feeds her!"

They zipped through the fields, testing the impressive endurance of their species as she skillfully both fled and tested the strength of their resolve and devotion.

Her scent of fragrant lilies was but a beacon.

It was life itself. It beat with the thrum of lifeblood in the arteries of the Earth. She was the very fountain of life. With her gathered in their embrace, they would never again hunger for any but each other.

But to convince her that they were worth her time—

It might take decades, possibly even centuries.

Severus felt his fangs extend in desire.

He was always up for a challenge.

—-

Severus reached for the lily on his collar, feeling a surge of confusion and panic when he discovered it was not there. There was a knock on the door, and his head snapped up instantly with a hungry desperation to see something, anything that might be familiar to his soul.

Potter stood there, his green eyes like a beacon that jolted through his desperate confusion.

Lily.

Lily's son.

Lily.

"What did you want, Potter?"

---

"Professor, it's so good to see you doing well," a misty voice broke through the painful flood of memories.

Severus' head jerked up.

"Don't you think so, Harry?" Luna said with a smile. She patted Harry on the arm as she tugged him along with her.

Suddenly, Severus' jaw tightened, and his arm shot out and took Harry by the throat, pinning him against the wall.

"I see you, old man," Snape hissed even as Luna lunged for her wand.

"No!" she cried out suddenly, her posture no longer slumped, relaxed, and whimsical.

Severus' mouth opened slightly as if to bare his teeth, his fingers digging into the side of Harry's skull and eye as if he was contemplating gouging them out.

"You had all of us pining over a vain witch whose greatest accomplishment was to be the focus of all our adoration," he said as his gaze looked through Harry's green eyes and into something beyond it. "She never knew—just how good she had it. Where every head turned to notice her whether for good or bad. But you twisted it, didn't you, Albus? You made us all fools for her to fuel your war against your own mistake."

"STOP HIM! HE'S GOING TO KILL HARRY!" Luna screamed.

Alarmed, a squad of Aurors hastily scrambled in their direction, their wands out—

Just as a rampaging herd of highly annoyed pegasi landed in the corridor and trampled,kicked, and otherwise equine-handled anything and everything in their path.

Snape swapped his wand hand and made a gesture at his other hand, cutting it until the blood dripped, and swapped the wand over to the dominant hand before pressing his wand to the edge of Harry's eye. A trickle of his blood moved down the length of his wand as Harry struggled in Snape's grip only to find he was unable to move.

The blood seemed to energise Snape's wand, and the tip glowed brightly as he drew it back, and winding tendrils of magic shot into Harry's eyes. Harry screamed, and a form like the length of a phoenix feather slowly slid out from his eyes.

"Mihail!" Severus yelled, his voice having changed into something deeper and slightly accented. He flung the magic infused feather to the centre of the room.

Sanguini bit his hand to draw blood and slammed it down on the feather as it landed, a surge of his power concentrated in both focus and blood. The feather seemed to scream like the bird it came from.

A massive explosion blew outwards, taking off the roof to expose the hall to the elements and taking out quite a few walls as it went.

The pegasi flew off into the night sky, panicked.

As the Aurors tried to clear away the smoke and dust clouds so they could see who they were trying to aim at, they found themselves face to face with the not-so-dead Albus Dumbledore.

"No, no, no! You ruined everything!" Luna cried as she quickly cast a spell, and there was a sudden sickening crack as Hermione staggered back from where she had carefully placed herself between Luna's sudden attack and the Minister For Magic.

Her fingers came back from the wedge of wooden shrapnel from the explosion, blood dripping from each digit.

Hermione dropped to her knees with a pained grunt as Aurors surrounded the Minister and pushed him away to safety even as they seemed conflicted about who to point their wands at otherwise.

She pressed her bloodied hand to her sternum where the lily was embedded. "Goddess Athena," she whispered. "I place myself in Your hands of justice," she rasped in Ancient Greek.

Snape's and Sanguini's heads both snapped around in the same instant to see their beloved priestess crumple onto the ground, and something broke.

There was a roar.

A howl.

An anguish that filled the ruins of the convention centre hall seemed to permeate every stone.

There was a sudden pulse of power that emanated from Snape's body.

Once.

Twice.

On the third pulse, it became unbearably strong, an intense beam of crimson light nova-ing outwards as it toppled even more debris in its wake.

Snape stood up ramrod straight, his glossy raven hair blowing about in an invisible intangible wind and power sparking off his body with a malevolent dark red aura. His fangs lengthened, extending outward as his black irises were lit with a vivid crimson energy that left trails of glowing plasma as they moved. Magic glinted off his fangs almost like liquid, and his hands jerked as they seemed to elongate as razor-sharp claws pushed out of his fingertips like crystalline daggers.

"NO! This power was promised to MY family!" Luna cried out as she frantically clawed at the air as a darkened magic exited her body and returned to Severus. It seemed to transform in the air, its darkened sickly tar changing into something strangely vaporous and alive. It began to take on an organic shape, pulsing with a new life that it had lacked before.

The magic slid into Snape's body like a cat folding itself into a fishbowl,expanding and pressing into every nook and cranny until the fusion to his magic was completed.

Snape let out a bestial roar, his magic extending from him like living tentacles of plasma. He bit into his hand with his newly reemerged fangs, and combined the blood with his magic, wielding the whip-like magic as a weapon as it snapped around Albus Dumbledore, binding him up like an angry Devil's Snare.

Sanguini had moved far faster than the eye could see, his body appearing by Luna in an instant as his expression changed from frozen shock to savage wrath. His usual charming, disarming beauty transformed into something utterly primal and unspeakably monstrous as a pair of alabaster wings burst from his back and the bony elongated finger claws pinned Luna to the ruined wall. His face, now a bestial muzzle filled with sharp, inhuman teeth, snarled into her face as he whispered in a disturbingly human velvet-smooth voice. "I do so loathe having to replace my wardrobe," he growled. He licked across the wound on her head, tasting her blood. His eyes glowed ominously for a moment before they widened in surprise.

"I think it's about time this farce ended, don't you think, Pandora?"

"You would never have known," 'Luna' hissed at him, her pale eyes flashing with fury. "Your little Greek strumpet just had to erode the seal on your lover's power. Had to keep reminding him of who he was. Two monsters lusting after the same woman. I did you a favour."

"Stealing vampiric powers to transfer your own soul to your poor dying daughter's body after she opened your magic box and mortally wounded you, only to find herself dying alongside you? Hiding in a cloak of your daughter's living flesh, just so airy and nonsensical that no one would ever suspect that you were anything but a strangely wise yet nonetheless addle-brained young witch? Pray tell, how long," Sanguini said implacably, his tongue licking across his teeth, "would you have waited before reuniting with your beloved Xenophilius? Or is that perhaps what broke his mind? Discovering that the woman he once loved lives on as a parasite in his own child's body?"

"You know," a voice that did not quite belong interrupted. It was both feminine and not, singular and many layered in one voice. "They once questioned that a goddess of war and wisdom would be a patron for vampires—but My chosen are meant to live a very long time to both seek knowledge and honour the divine."

"Hermione" now stood tall where she had once fallen, her hair writhing like a wreath of living serpents. Her crystalline clawed fingers pulled at the shaft of wood in her chest cavity with an annoyed tug as one would rid themselves of an annoying splinter.

"This one was one of My most devoted. She tended the sacred herds with tenderness and humbleness. She had no great beauty to draw men or gods to war or to desecrate my temple with their forced lusts as they once did for Medusa. She willingly isolated herself not to protect herself but to protect My sacred spaces, but her soul suffered a loneliness in that it ached for understanding and acceptance and physical comfort that even her goddess could not provide. And while I may choose a path where I stand alone, I am not so cruel to wish such upon My most devoted. So, I se—"

"Why won't you just DIE—HRRK!" Pandora suddenly choked as Hermione's finger talon touched under her chin. "Be silent, mortal. You may have evaded My Uncle's domain by stealing your own child's body, but your half-hearted prayers to Poseidon will not count like those from the heart of one who is truly faithful. I tire of My faithful being used in petty games that have nothing to do with true war, fighting for their belief in a power greater than themselves. Instead, you would seek to cheat death, but My gift of immortality is not some idle gift to be given to the selfish and power-hungry. Not to the prideful whelp of some mortal claiming to be of the lineage of the gods."

For a moment, Hermione's face seemed to be superimposed by the face of a wrathful goddess, Her eyes blazing like twin suns. "It is obvious that I need to provide My chosen with more blatant protections to remind foolhardy mortals to fear the wrath of the gods that they have so conveniently forgotten."

Athena's glow flared brightly, and She rolled Her head around once, cracking the bones in Hermione's neck as Her hair twisted and reformed into true vipers. Delicate scales in the colour of rainbow obsidian and shimmering gold travelled down Her neck and arms as Her eyes turned to slits. "I will not make the mistake I did with Medusa in allowing My devoted priestess to be murdered by some would-be hero who would make himself a king amongst men."

She took Sanguini's head in her hands delicately and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. "To her chosen mates, I give thee full immunity to her most deadly weapon that you may continue to live in peace with her and within my temples." She glided over to where Severus stood silently staring, unsure as to which emotion to settle upon on his countenance. She took his head in Her hands as She had with Sanguini and gently pressed a kiss upon his forehead.

Gold and silver laurels entwined with serpents formed a delicate circlet around each of their heads, sinking into their skin as a permanent mark of the gift of Athena's favour. Deep black scales formed down Severus' forehead and spread down the sides of his head down his neck even as shimmering silver scales the colour of polished metal did the same for Sanguini.

"I restore your bond and reaffirm your Oath to Me taken so very long ago," Athena whispered. "Let no being of this Earth or Mount Olympus be allowed to question its strength."

"Goddess," Sanguini and Severus whispered softly, kneeling together.

"And you, Oathbreaker," Athena said darkly as she glided up to the gobsmacked Albus Dumbledore. "You swore that you would protect Severus from harm, but you caused so much of it in your prideful blindness. Your very subjugation of his power and true nature cast the very first stone against him. Your long and winding trail of lies and sins are well known to us, mortal. I myself will do nothing against you. But there are certain others who are far more ferocious in their zealous pursuit of oathbreakers such as you, and they will enjoy taking bites out of your flesh as they tear it from your bones. Now that you are no longer cloaked in the body of a boy too long shielded beneath the Cloak—which I am sure was quite intentional, hrm—you will find that every spirit of vengeance and justice will be catching wind of your perfidy even as we speak."

Albus' look of absolute terror spread across his aged face like an overgrown Devil's Snare.

Hermione's expression was predatory. "There is no court of man, magical or otherwise, that can judge you for all that you have done, mortal," Athena said through her vessel. "So, I will leave it to the Erinyes to mete out your appropriate justice. And because I am not entirely unmerciful—"

Athena's gaze was stone cold. "I shall give you seven days for the seven auras to make peace before you are hunted down like a stag in the hunts of Artemis. That is the only mercy you shall be granted, provided those here when I leave do not find you first."

Athena tilted her head. "I suspect that My sister shall find many new converts tonight taking up Her faith to hunt you down."

She turned to Harry, narrowing her eyes. "As for you, dear, blind and selectively deaf boy. You will find that the truth is not often what you wish it to be, but knowledge is there to be found if you know but where to look and who to ask. I would focus on that instead of upon the blind worship of those who most definitely did not deserve it."

Athena's expression softened. "To be fair in my judgement, however, I will acknowledge that you could not help being blinded and bound as a child. You had no hand in it. To you, I give you the ability to forgive yourself for what could not be changed and—" The goddess' gaze seemed to narrow as she pulled what looked like a photo album out from under her arm and handed it to a speechless Harry, "the wisdom to know the difference. Life's other mysteries must be unlocked by your own deeds as with any other mortal."

Athena turned back to "Luna" and tilted Her head. "While your offences to Me are worthy of punishment, My Uncle Hades has a much longer grievance with you. And while you have managed to avoid His domain for as long as some others have—what matters most to Him is the spirit in which you have done so. You have not dedicated yourself to the gods, nor have you shown any selfless greater purpose. You were willing to sacrifice your own child's life to elongate your own. It is not the domain of wisdom or war. I will defer to his more encompassing judgement."

As the floor seemed to turn black and sink into a churning hole, Athena's radiance left Hermione's body and a dark figure caught her body as it rose up from the dark of the Earth. He cradled her body in one arm as his other hand grasped his bident. They floated together upwards until his feet touched the ground.

While Athena's aura had been of radiant majesty, the new arrival had a cold impartiality that hung like funeral curtains around their body. His face was thin and chiselled, his skin pale like alabaster. His black hair seemed to draw in all light where others might reflect it. It hung in straight strands around his face to frame a flat-lipped dour expression and fathomless dark, deep-set eyes. Upon his head sat a bone-like crown woven with tendrils of the cypress, asphodel, mint, poplar, and narcissus as well as raw gemstones of the earth, uncut but nonetheless glimmering with otherworldly power.

"Pandora," he said like a heavy exhale. He stepped toward her even as he stepped on Albus' foot to prevent him from escaping. "Hello."

"H-H-Hades—" Luna gabbered, stuttering in wide-eyed terror.

"When My dear brother created the very first woman, also named Pandora, he did so with the curse that women would have so many gifts from the gods with which to plague humanity. But they were gifts none the same. Your ancestor was given a jar that was supposed to be her dowry. Now some would call it a box but really who carries a box around with them, filled with all the evils and diseases of the world? Now, the whole world was warned not to marry her, for if they did, she would open the jar and set loose myriad plagues upon mankind."

Hades' eyes smouldered. "Now, some might call Epimetheus an idiot for not listening to His brother Prometheus warning to never take a gift from my brother Zeus, but like most failing mortals, they have to do precisely what they are told not to. Almost like they desire failure. So, he married her, and she opened the jar, letting out all sorts of things to bring the Golden Age of Man to a crashing end. Now, they say Pandora, realising her failure, attempted to close the lid, but only hope remained inside after all of the rest escaped. It is said that there is power in the name, and of all the names one could have, I would say that being named Pandora is simply asking for trouble. My wife would say that perhaps you should have changed your name. Alas, you did not, and you crafted a box of forbidden magic hoping to collect the power you wanted to use in a project not yet fully realised."

"But you had a daughter—and like all children, they have no respect for rules or warnings most times. She opened it, and blew you and herself up along with your cellar and most of your home. Now, your shame would have ended there, tragic but at least not truly your fault, but you weren't satisfied with death and the natural cycle. No, you took that power that your daughter had released and used it to transfer yourself over to her injured body and supplanted her."

"This could be considered a heinous act enough, but the magic was unstable, to be certain, and you needed even more power to ensure that your daughter's soul didn't repossess what was originally hers to begin with," Hades said coolly with a disturbingly loud crack of his neck. "So when this quisquilian ructabunde came to you with an offer to provide funds to support your husband's proclivity for pursuing the bizarre if only you would keep a lid on some power for him, you just had to accept, didn't you? Of course, you didn't keep that in a box either, did you, Pandora?"

"My work was going to change everything!" Luna protested.

"Perhaps," Hades allowed. "Or perhaps it was doomed to failure from the very start. "You didn't know what it would change, only that it could."

He placed a clawed fingertip to her forehead, digging in just enough to draw a single bead of blood. "Oh, bother, I seem to have drawn a bit of blood. Whatever could possibly help me to clean up the mess?"

"No! I don't want to be a thrall! A mindless servant to a beast forever! No!"

Hades leaned down to stare her in the eyes, the sockets of His eyes filled with red energy instead of an eye. They glowed and flickered like banked flames. "Release your daughter's body, and perhaps, I will not banish you both to Tartarus and let Cerberus use you as a chew toy along with that soul shattered husk of a mortal soul that caused a tremendous flood of people to arrive at my gates."

He glowered into her. "Contrary to popular belief, I have no great desire for torrential floods of new arrivals into My Underworld. Now—" His lips curved around his teeth in a near snarl. "You can either let go of that body, or I will cast you into Tartarus just as painfully as mortally possible."

She trembled, head jerking to the side in frantic denial.

Hades' nose flared in obvious annoyance and He pulled His bident closer and pointed the sharpened tips into Luna's chest.

"My Lord Hades," Hermione said. "What happened to the daughter, Luna?"

"They were both slated to die that day," Hades said, his head moving to regard Hermione. "With one exception, if Pandora had sacrificed herself to protect her child, the girl would have been allowed to survive the accident, albeit with the trauma of having watched her mother die and knowing it was her fault that she died."

Hermione's face shifted between a few emotions, her new head snakes writhing in a rather confused pattern in response to her emotional storm. "What if she were to make that sacrifice today?"

Hades was silent, but He lowered his bident slightly. "I would allow the child to remain in the body and live out the natural progression of life, but she would do so without the magic she was born to. Magic she forfeited at the moment of her original time of death."

"But she would live," Hermione asked.

"She would, child," Hades agreed.

Hermione stood and made a point not to look Pandora in the face. "You'll pardon me for not looking you straight in the face, but I have a feeling that would be quite fatal for you both. I have lived for a very long time, Pandora, and there are a few gifts I will never be able to have. A short existence where every second of life is more precious than the next and life that can grow within you. I sacrificed my mortality and being able to create life for my goddess. I have no regrets about this. It was a conscious decision. Devotion to my goddess. But, you were given the gift of children. A loving family and the promise of the future. Will you not give her the gift of life and let your daughter have a chance to find her own happiness? Wherever that may be?"

Hermione frowned even knowing Pandora probably couldn't see her face. "The cycle is a gift. Having a beginning and an end. It gives life meaning in a measurable way that immortals must struggle with."

Hermione sighed softly. "To pursue immortality without a greater purpose to guide you makes it a curse rather than a gift. Though not all immortality is a direct gift from the gods, not all vampires were given a choice—not all of us drank from the Crimson Deep. Those who did are not driven by hunger like those that did not—because that is the price of immortality. That hunger. Hunger for life. Hunger for purpose. Hunger for true meaning. Most vampires take that far more literally."

Hermione blinked slowly. "When a mortal seeks immortality without the blessing of the gods, they will be filled with an endless, overwhelming void that cannot be filled. Cannot be eased. One need only look to those like Tom Riddle to see the chasm inside one desperately clinging to a phantom of life hoping to fill the black hole within."

"When this one—" she said as she gestured with one hand and all her head vipers turned to hiss angrily at Dumbledore, "suppressed my mate's bond to his power and to his mates, he cut him off from me and thus his link to the Crimson Deep through me. We all began to deage. To preserve the one I could still touch, I cut off the link to Mihail to keep him well and intact while I took his curse upon myself in his stead. All stemmed from his forcible subjugation of Severus—whose only sin was to think he could help mortals in their war on his own terms."

Hermione's eyes glowed ominously. "If I were mortal, there would be much greater sin in what he did," she said. "True, two of us were very much mortal—again—for nearly a lifetime. It did give us some perspective again on the coils of mortality. Things we had forgotten in our long lives. But you—what was your actual goal in preserving your life in your daughter's body? Surely not to live a second childhood in the hopes that once you matured that you could reunite with your husband one day? I might be out of touch in some parts of Wizarding society, but I am fairly certain that such a frankly incestuous relationship would be considered to be the utmost taboo in every segment of respectable society. And some part of you must know that aspect is doomed—judging by Xenophilius' rather interesting level of insanity. Not quite insane but not quite sane either. Somewhere sadly stuck in the middle."

A beetle buzzed loudly as it flew off Dumbledore's shoulder, but as it did, it flew directly toward Hermione's bowed head and stared her straight in the eyes.

Hermione's eyes glowed with the simultaneous flash of magic from each of her serpents, and the beetle fell to the floor as a statue.

While Hermione did not see Luna's horrified expression, she did hear her horrified gasp and taste the sharp tang of her fear off the tongues of her head serpents.

Hades plucked the minuscule statuefied beetle off the floor and held it delicately between his fingers. "I have a very special place for you, my dear," he said, his expression not changing.

"I fear I will have to share you with My niece, child," Hades said. His hand went to Hermione's chin and gently lifted her head so she could look Him in the eyes. His gaze bored into her as she looked into the face of the god. "Her gift is far too effective to not touch upon My domain. Will you accept this, child of the Crimson Deep, the chosen of My niece?

"I will honour you and your wife, Lord Hades," Hermione whispered softly, even her head vipers bowing in deference.

"And your mates?" Hades' eyes flicked to regard Severus and Sanguini.

"We accept our lady's decision as our own," they chimed, their heads bowed politely.

Hades' lips quirked slightly, something like a broad smile, perhaps, on His terms. "Such acquiescence is rare on Earth, even in the olden days when the gods walked the surface far more often. He placed a kiss upon Hermione's brow, and a circlet made of fine woven cypress, mint, poplar, delicately gemmed narcissus blooms, and ruby pomegranate seeds formed into a crown about her head. The "vines" curled down her face, weaving into her head serpents and hair to twine around her ears.

With a gentle tap of a clawlike finger, He caressed the circlet, and a soft blindfold moved across her eyes. "With this, your gaze shall be your own unless you wish to share it—make no mistake, it will be just as lethal with or without my gift. What I give you is—control."

Hades' lips curved upward in a rather smug expression. "And a puppy."

Hermione's eyes widened, seen only as a slight increase in glow from under the blindfold.

Hades pulled a plump, oh-so-fluffy furred, three-headed pup out from a rift in the air and placed it into her arms.

"To guard your home and family from those who might dare to question your boundaries."

Hermione's face lit up even under the blindfold, and her circlet seemed to glow with shimmering magic. "You are most generous, Lord Hades."

"The cause was sufficient," Hades said gently. "True faith is rare in this world. True devotion all the more. For those that see Me here or my niece—they may have faith after all. But that will not be the same as true devotion and love from the soul—that which my niece saw in you so long ago. And none of Us can afford to lose our faithful priests or priestesses as we once did. I will not have some Hercules or Perseus wreak havoc upon what is mine again. Athena already lost Medusa—she will not lose you the same."

"What do I call her?" Hermione asked as the pup licked both sides of her face as the middle head pegged her nose with its tongue.

"You may call her Keres," Hades said. "It means 'death spirit' in the Earthen language of Greek. It has been long since the time when I could only think of Cerberus as the name of my sole dog. Persephone has encouraged me to branch out. She said calling my dog a name that was basically 'Spot' was humiliating for such an honourable dog."

Hermione smiled. "Hello, Keres," she greeted the pup. "You are a very adorable death spirit."

The little pup wagged her tail happily, eyes glowing bright, and for a moment Hermione's, Severus', and Sanguini's eyes glowed together as the Covenant was cemented.

Hades' content expression hardened as he regarded Luna. "Of all the people on this Earth, the one most deserving of justice would rather show you compassion. It is often said, the gods have no compassion for those not their own. Myself, perhaps, most of all, as death can have no prejudice."

"But, in this case, since pleas to your better nature have fallen upon deaf ears, I will now take matters into My own hands." He placed His bident to her chest once more. "I evict thee, Pandora, to Tartarus, forever cursed as one without coins upon your eyes who cannot afford payment to the ferryman. There you will be judged by Cronus, who will decide which punishment is best suited for your—misdeeds. And since your decision was not made willingly, I gift your daughter with the human part of the magic you stole to become your own, if only, to balance the scales that you would be without it in Tartarus. Begone."

Pandora's scream came from Luna's throat, and her spirit clawed and fought to remain with Luna's body, but the rift firmly yanked Pandora's ghostly bodily soul into the deep dark of the Underworld.

Hades thumped his bident on the ground, his lips curling in disgust as he closed the rift with a swift gesture. "I swear upon the Styx, children of the Crimson Deep, sworn to Athena my niece, I will watch over you as your devotion thrums between us as the ancient Covenant between the gods and their most devoted."

He sliced his hand with one claw and let it drip crimson. "Keep My temple in your hearts as you have with My niece, and I shall keep you in Mine." He guided his hand to Hermione's mouth, then Severus', then Sanguini's.

Hades closed his hand as the wound healed by his will alone. "May your faith and devotion never fade," Hades said. "For there is nothing greater to be given to one's gods."

Hades's expression softened. "May you live always in peace, but should you send them to My domain, may it be swift and merciless as the Styx."

His lips turned upward but a fraction as he regarded Albus. "Have a good run, Albus. I will see you soon enough."

With that, Hades, God of the Underworld, pulled a veil of darkness around him and sank back into the Earth.

"Ruff!" Keres triple-barked, panting her commentary.

Severus and Sanguini pressed their heads into Hermione's curls with sighs of relief as their bond, now doubly reinforced by the Oath and Covenant to two gods, hardened by the blows of countless trials, tempered by their refound compassion, and annealed with the bond to Hades, Lord of the Underworld.

Keres wriggled and made sure to slurp each member of her new family with her magnanimous triple tongues, her tail beating furiously back and forth and smacking Severus and Sanguini in the face with its obnoxious fluffiness.

Severus looked sombre as Sanguini looked quite elated.

"I love you," Hermione said to them both, her arms curved around both their heads. "S'agapo."

"Amorem Amamus," Severus whispered.

"Te Iubesc," Sanguini murmured into her hair and vipers. The head vipers curiously tongue flicked both of her mates, seemingly memorising their scent and flavour.

"A gorgon," Severus said with a breathy respect. "Does this mean you will be able to fly with wings of your own?"

"I can't let you and Mihail have all the fun," Hermione said with flushed skin as she basked in the reaffirmed bond with her eternal life mates.

Time, once slowed down with the presence of the gods, finally sped back up to normal, catching up to the present as if on fast forward.

The flaming phoenix let out a shrill cry as Dumbledore abruptly disappeared in a fiery wreathe, and Harry cursed aloud.

"Artemis, goddess of the swift and silent bow, the hunt—sharp of eye, steady of arm, aim ever true—pray, take me to be your hunter, that I may bring honour to both You and myself," Harry hissed his prayer as he slammed his hand down on the space where Dumbledore had been. "Grant me success in the hunt with honest intent to bring not meat to the table but justice to those most injured. Goddess Artemis, take me into your care and teach me patience and tenacity so that I may know your grace and ferocity." He flicked his wand out straight up in his hand in front of him and then crushed it to his chest in a salute. "Bless this hunt in Your name that I might take my place amongst your faithful."

The magic around Harry flared in a glow of green and yellow leaves, and he Apparated out along with about five other Aurors who had taken Oath to Artemis simultaneously.

Unspeakables surrounded Hermione and her mates, one held out their hand silently.

Hermione, Severus, and Sanguini all placed their wands in the Unspeakable's hand as they took them and passed their wand over it. The Unspeakable bowed their head, passing them back as the group stepped away.

A crowd had gathered around the fallen body of Luna Lovegood—now, perhaps, truly herself for the first time in a decade or more—and she was wailing like a lost nine-year-old child—restored to the very moment of her arrested death.

Her emotions were spiking with her wailing, crying out in anguish that she had killed her mum, caught in the time when the deed had truly happened.

Severus narrowed his eyes and turned, walking over to them. "If I may?" he said as the people around her scrambled to get out of the newly refound vampire lord's way.

He caught Luna in his intense gaze, splaying his finger to alight upon her head, fingers resting on specific points on her face. "By the waters of the Lethe, child, you will forget the anguish but not the event, feel for your loss but it will not be so crippling. Think not of murder but tragedy. Grieve not for a life lost but celebrate the life given. A life that remains for you. Find joy in the mystery of life, not death. Remember that death comes for all in the end, and everyone's time is different. There now, child, sleep."

He removed his hand and stepped away, nodding as the gaggle of wizards and witches surrounded her. Some oogled at his change in appearance and demeanour. Some, perhaps, oogled that not much had changed in his demeanour at all, only that he seemed to have grown taller and was even more intimidating than before. Some, however, noted the distinctive but detached tenderness in his skillful easing of the young witch's tortured mind, a child who had just lost her mother all over again and believed herself to be the cause of it all.

"Severus?" a hesitant voice greeted him.

Severus' eyes flicked to the side before the rest of his head followed suit. "Minerva," he said.

"Are you—you?" she asked, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

"I remember you, Minerva McGonagall," Severus said softly. "A true friend to Severus Snape even when she did not have to be." He pressed his arm across his chest, hand over his heart, moving it outward in a sign of respect.

Minerva, unsure about the strangely unWizarding gesture, tried to decide what was the most appropriate response. Finally, with her feline ears practically sticking out of her head in her human form, she engulfed the taller man in a crushing hug. "I'm so glad you're okay, laddie."

Severus, slightly stiffened at the invasion of his personal space aura, softened after a moment and very slowly put his hand to her back and closed his eyes.

"I never knew, lad," she said, her face full of sorrow.

"No one did outside—" Severus said. "Me most of all. Hermione did. Sanguini did. Albus, of course—but even he didn't realise exactly what he had subjugated. He thought me to be a nameless wizard of unmeasured power—the perfect spy."

"How was it even possible? Minerva asked.

"This," Kingsley said as he walked up, his dark eyes narrowed. He held a broken device in his hand. It looked like a statue made of marble, now broken, whose original form was lost. "My Unspeakables say it is or rather was a powerful subjugation artefact from the Middle Ages. It moulded its target into something usable to the wielder. What Albus seemed to have wanted was, strangely, not someone super powerful to take out his mistake—something else. An agent he could use to achieve his aims. A tool."

"I never really knew him at all," Minerva fretted, her face anguished. "How could I have ever missed that?"

"I don't think it was something easily seen, even had we known to look," Kingsley said with a sigh. "Albus was always one with flair and a certain style to everything he did. It distracted one from the truth like a magician on a stage distracts an audience with his patter. A different sort of magic than the kind we cast and use. Slight of hand and so much more."

"Not to be the bringer of the obvious question," Sanguini said as he glided over. "But perhaps we can address the fact that he is still alive at all, if but for just a little while longer."

"My love," Severus said with amusement. "If I learned anything under his boot heel for the last however many decades, he was insidious and duplicitous in everything he did. For every face he put on, seven times ten plans lay in waiting for every possible outcome. I would have been lucky to be told even one of them."

"However did he reinforce the subjugation without revealing the presence of the artefact?" Minerva asked, frowning.

"That is what he placed in Potter's eyes, enchanting them to be the spitting image of his mother's green eyes. So, every time I looked upon them, I was immediately reminded of Lily. Lily the person. Just enough irony that the symbol of our triumvirate was the moon lily. He used that too. I don't think he ever knew what it was actually about. Few that are not vampires know of vampire ways, let alone the blessings of the gods." Severus wrinkled his nose and sniffed.

"He ensorcelled a symbol blessed by the gods?" Kingsley asked, his eyes very wide.

"Blessed by Athena specifically," Hermione confirmed. "On the night of our wedding."

"You'd think she would have taken offence right then and there," Kingsley said grimly, "considering how wrathful she was tonight."

"Rules, perhaps, I cannot say for sure," Hermione said. "But, as you said, he did not know exactly what he was tampering with, and while heinous indeed, he did not purposely set out to corrupt an object touched by a god's divine grace."

"You are taking this surprisingly well," Kingsley said. "I am surprised it was just Potter and the Aurors taking up the bow of Artemis and falling into Her auspice."

"There are many very deserving people out there who are perfectly willing to see to it that Dumbledore gets what he so richly deserves," Hermione said. "I, for one, am truly grateful that my beloved mates are finally back with me, intact, whole, and remembering all that we are. We are all, mostly, the same age we started at in appearances. Luckily, I don't have to be a forever teenager, Severus does not have to believe himself alone and shunned by society, and my dear Mihail does not have to suffer alone wondering if the two of us are going to survive to be our true selves again."

Minerva's eyes widened in rising horror. "Mr Weasley tried to lay claim to a married witch, one bonded by Athena Herself?" she questioned. "Yet, you couldn't say a word about it, could you?"

"No," Hermione said. "Sanguini married me, again, to make it official for the second time in order to protect me from Ronald and those like him, who remember only the swotty Muggleborn witch whom no one could possibly want to marry save out of pity or obligation. All we had to do was wait for the curse threads to finally weaken enough that Severus began to truly remember and have enough willpower to retain it."

"It probably helped," Sanguini observed, "since Albus was there biding his time trapped in Potter's eyes as a sort of almost-Horcrux—the weave of the curse was slowly unravelling. I had our love come with her claws out, as it were, just for tonight— to help trigger something. The moon was perfectly full, and the time was ripe for pot stirring."

Severus shook his head. "You have ever been the most masterful pot-stirrer."

"It is a gift," Mihail replied suavely.

"Did you know he was hiding in Harry's eyes?" Minerva asked, horror on her face.

"No," Severus admitted. "Not until the memories came back to me and just as they were, Luna Lovegood brought Harry over to look me in the eyes just so. It was then I saw them for what they were. Lily's eyes. They weren't Potter's eyes at all. They were there, put there, for me. For all who knew her—so every time someone looked into Harry Potter's eyes, they would think, oh that wonderful young witch. Lily Evans."

"No wonder Potter swore an Oath to Artemis so quickly," Minerva said. "I canna only imagine the sheer rage of finding out you were being used in many more ways than one and by someone you trusted implicitly."

"Well, finding out the gods are very real and not myth or simply words one says when emotion is high might have helped him along," Kingsley said. "As it will for many who have seen now or will hear about it soon enough."

"Hermione," Kingsley said grimly. "I am so sorry you had to take a hit for me."

"The cause was sufficient," Hermione said, one eyebrow arched. "I could live through it. You could not."

"Your mates acted as though it was your death."

Severus and Sanguini looked in opposite directions and at different walls.

"They have always been rather overprotective of me," Hermione said, giving each one of them a tender kiss on the cheek.

"To be fair, it was quite uncomfortable, and had I been an average vampire and not one who drank from the Crimson Deep, I would probably not be here now, save for the timely intervention of the goddess Herself."

"What is this—Crimson Deep?"

"It is—" Hermione trailed off, muttering a number of things in Ancient Greek until she could come up with the right words. "It is like the ambrosia of the gods but meant only for those the gods wish to preserve in their service for as long as the gods remain. It is the lifeblood of the Earth itself in many ways. More perhaps." She grimaced. "I fear my words are trickling away."

"Long ago, when the gods walked the Earth, there were epic heroes and grand foes. There were great tragedies. The gods had more faithful, but they often lost them to other people. Disease. Heroes with misguided intentions." Hermione frowned.

"When Athena lost Medusa, she realised more needed to be done to preserve those that served so faithfully," Severus explained. "She had given Medusa the blessings of the stone serpent, but not immortality. So, when Zeus came up with a grand task for Perseus, I don't think he intended the solution to be Medusa's head. Unfortunately, the solution was Medusa's head because she obviously didn't want to part with it and she wasn't all that keen on helping the human son of Zeus on some great quest to bed a princess."

"Medusa, unfortunately, was the one mortal Gorgon," Sanguini continued. "She was also the most beautiful. And she attracted many admiring eyes. Athena, to protect her, gave her the gaze of stone and hair of serpents. But, it could not protect her from the other gods—either in person or their machinations. So, to answer your question, the Crimson Deep is a river hidden deep within the domains, outside of Hades but still deep. If the gods choose you, and you have been truly faithful, you will go to sleep and wake up there. Take a drink, and no hunger or thirst, disease, age or death will take you until Lord Hades finally bids you to come Home."

"That is how I gained my immortality so long ago," Hermione said. "Then I met Mihail and then Severus, who first gained their immortality through the more traditional vampiric route, being bitten and given blood from another vampire before death."

"But once we had tasted of her," Severus said, his expression wistful. "We realised we needed no one else. We could feed on food or blood if we wished, but we no longer needed to. We very quickly became converts to Athena—not through that specifically, but through Hermione's love for her goddess we, too, shared it."

"And when we married and sealed our triumvirate, we swore ourselves to Athena as well, for Her blessings were everywhere in our lives."

"I don't think I'll ever look at vampires the same way again, lads," Minerva confessed with a shake of her head. "With all that strange blood magic, the weapons, the sheer amount of power you've been holding back on using, I think a lot of people may realise that you didn't really need to have laws allowing you rights to govern yourselves as much as you did it out of courtesy."

Sanguini smirked. "My wife has all of her projects. She likes everything to be as legal as the time allows it. If anything, so she can pull up obscure laws and facts hundreds of years from now and be, 'Ah ah! No. The law says no'."

Hermione huffed, crossing her arms at Sanguini. She muttered something in Greek.

Sanguini merely smiled at her and whispered sweet words in Romanian.

Hermione flushed, her eyes glowing with red and amber as her power surged with a chaser of lust.

"Well, if anything," Severus said as his memories caught up with him. "Integration of Wizarding society and vampire society will improve some of the isolationism that our kind tends to lapse into when not engaged in a time or place."

"Ironically, Severus, you were always the one most concerned about human affairs," Sanguini said diplomatically.

Severus curled his lip in disgust. "I may have changed my mind of late. I've had over three decades of scorn against humanity building up in my system."

BRrowlrlff! Keres said, her tail wagging rapidly.

Severus' expression softened. "And now, we have a dog."

"Best dog ever," Hermione said, pressing her face to the dog's heads.

Severus narrowed his eyes as he noticed Minerva and Kingsley conspiring together. He recognised that look well enough. Kingsley nodded decisively.

Minerva walked over, a cat-ate-the-canary look upon her almost-muzzled face. Animagi—were so easy to read.

"I seem to have a few positions opening up at Hogwarts with the most recent events," she announced.

"Goodie," Severus said, his expression utterly impassive. "Good luck in filling them."

"We will also be building a temple dedicated to Athena and Hades, and we will need oh, two, maybe three qualified folk to oversee its construction, perform the blessings, and tend to the temple grounds once finished."

Severus' mouth twitched.

WHUFF! Keres interjected.

"And make room for a very large canine," Minerva added, "like the temples of old."

Wag. Wagwag. Wagwagwag went the happy dog's tail.

"Lodging. Food. All supplies included."

Hermione handed Kingsley a wriggling Keres. "Hold my dog."

She brought Severus' head down to hers for the snog of all snogs, a flare of her power merging with his in a heated nova of welcoming and desire.

They parted very, very reluctantly.

"That sounds—wonderful," Severus said carefully.

Sanguini pulled his head over from the other side and made Hermione blush by just watching them.

As Sanguini pulled away, his tongue flicking across his fangs, Severus' lip twitched a few times. "We will be quite—happy—to accept your invitation, Minerva."

Minerva smiled wickedly. "Excellent."

Thump.

Kingsley was down for the count as a countless pounds of wiggly, happy three-headed dog slurped him into total submission.

---

"One drop per year needed per day for however many days equals years needing to be deaged," Severus said, his eyes narrowing as he handed the crystal phial to the healer. "So for seven years, you would use seven drops the first day, six the next, five the day after until only one drop was given and then you would end it. Do not waver from this titration."

The green-robed healer bowed his head politely. "Thank you, Lord Severus," he said in deference to the ancient vampire's societal address. "We appreciate your help in this."

"The witchling made a grave error in judgement, but if Hades believes she is worth giving a chance, then she should be given a true chance at growing up the age she believes she is. Be warned. For each year this ages her back, she will lose upon her true lifespan. This is—merely a physical change. Her time on this earth is the same. This is not a fountain of youth. We cannot go against the will of Lord Hades and the natural order."

"Thank you," the healer said. "This will help ease her back into Hogwarts as it should have been. She will start school in two years—the year she would have aged before entering Hogwarts originally. It will give her time to bond with her father, and—to help her father cope and heal as well."

Severus' eyes flicked downward and back up, the hint of crimson power in his dark gaze. "I can only imagine what pain he must endure in knowing the sins of his one-time wife and the sins his daughter committed, albeit unknowingly."

The healer let out a gasp as the herd of winged pegasi landed on the temple grounds, even as it was still being built. The gardens, Hermione had made her priority, and the pegasi whickered in approval as they cantered up to her.

She dipped the bowl into the moon-blessed water and watered each one like times of old.

She turned to the healer with a smile on her lips. "You can water them, if you wish," she said, gesturing to the waiting bowl by the water's edge.

As the healer staggered towards her invitation with obvious excitement, Severus' eyes flashed crimson. "Another that will be singing the praises of our most wise Athena soon enough," he said with a twitch of a smile on his lips.

"It worked for us, love," Sanguini said agreeably as he carried a stack of parchments of the plans from one place to another. He pressed a kiss to Severus' cheek. "If but one person in a year is moved to shelter our goddess and god in their heart, then we are rich beyond measure."

The healer let out a laugh as the playful cerberus puppy chased the flying horses and then they reversed and chased him right back.

"We are truly blessed, my love," Mihail said, his expression utterly content. "We have each other, our gods, and a grand home that we built together. There can be no better reward after so long apart."

"The Council is content with our designation here?" Severus asked.

"Of course," Sanguini said. "Like they are going to argue with the gods considering they have seen first hand what blessings or curses the divine can give to our lives."

"I leave such delicate wordsmithing and diplomacy to you, Mihail. You have always been smoother of tongue and a charmer of even the harshest critic."

Sanguini smiled. "Of course, I am," he agreed. "I practised on you, after all."

Severus shot him a glare that could curdle milk, make cream into butter, and make perfect cheese all in one.

Sanguini laughed whole-heartedly as Hermione shot them a curious look from the pegasi herd. One of the herd was playfully chewing on one of her disgruntled-looking head vipers.

Sanguini continued to laugh in delight, his mirth filling the garden with happiness as assuredly as phoenix song.

---

"You've got to be joking," Severus said as he glowered down at the mediwitch.

"Severus Snape," Poppy scolded him, hands on her hips. "Vampire lord or no, I will not have you glaring at me like some errant first year. I know my profession well enough to know when someone is pregnant!"

Severus' nostrils flared as he seemed to count to ten in Latin, Romanian, Greek, Oscan, and Etruscan in rapid succession.

"How is this—even possible?" Hermione said in shock, her hand on her stomach. "I cannot have children."

"You will be having children. Or at least a child. We'll know more a bit further along."

"But, I drank from the Crimson Deep! I drank from Hades Himself!" Hermione protested. "I shouldn't be able to—create life inside of me."

"Well, I suspect either Athena or Hades thought differently," Poppy said decisively.

Severus twitched as he stormed out of the infirmary muttering, "I need tea. And blood. And blood in my tea. And possibly a shot of whisky mixed in."

Sanguini kissed his wife gently. "Such a wonderful gift from our gods, don't you think?"

Hermione touched her belly. "Do you really think—They would really let me have a child. Even one? Just one?"

Sanguini smiled. "Who would tell the gods that They cannot do what They will. If They choose to gift us with a child, then we shall give Them with our devotion and trust in Their wisdom. Even in Hades there is life, now. For Hades married Persephone, Goddess of Spring and Vegetation. Through Him, you also touched Her."

Hermione burst into tears, hugging Sanguini tightly. Mihail held her close, rubbing her back and soothing her head vipers. "Te voi iubi mereu."

Hermione touched his face. "Charmer."

Sanguini smiled. "Give Severus time to come to terms, dragul meu. He, like us, believed children were never an option short of via adoption. The miracle of life is something we could only dream of, and he has grown accustomed to having his dreams shattered, through no fault of ours."

Hermione sniffled and nodded. "You always know what to say, agápi mou."

Mihail gave her a wink. "It's a curse."

---

Hermione found herself plastered against the settee, her arms flailing helplessly as Severus covered her mouth with his and poured every last bit of his emotion into their bond through heat, passion, and the sorrow he'd felt at having upset her.

When they finally came up for air, Hermione's eyes were wide and filled with happy tears. "S'agapo, agápi mou."

"Never doubt my love for you, Hermione," Severus said. "I will doubt myself, my fate, even the plan of the gods, but I will never not love you."

Hermione burst into tears as she pulled him down on top of her and held him tightly.

"Finally," Severus said tenderly. "At a loss for words."

---

Severus' lip twitched at the sudden blur of movement as a happy cerberus went zooming by with a giggling child clinging to her back.

"Stelian," he said flatly. "Take this lunch hamper to your mother."

"Yes, father!" the boy said, his black hair blowing in the wind like a shampoo commercial as the boy grabbed the hamper while on the run and zoomed off to the far side of the garden.

Severus sighed, adding a dash of asphodel into his cauldron.

"Insufferable."

---

Sanguini walked into the bedroom and his eyebrows raised into his hairline almost immediately.

"Son."

His son, covered in hooting owls, was barely recognizable.

"Care to explain?"

"I—" the boy whinged. "I might have added the wrong ingredient into my cauldron and accidentally created an owl attraction potion."

"Did you follow Severus' instructions?"

"No, father."

"Does your mother know?"

The pile of owls slumped with him. "No, father."

"Clean up this mess at once and rid yourself of your newfound parliament before dinner," Mihail said.

"Yes, father."

Sanguini walked out of the room without another word and closed the door as the great pile of owls hooted loudly.

Sanguini gave Hermione a shared look of amusement as he silently met her in the hallway and gave her a hug. She burst into silent laughter as she hugged him fiercely.

"Kids," Mihail said, shaking his head.

---

"Mum."

"Hrm?"

"I think I like someone."

"You think or you know?"

"I'm not sure."

"Why do you think you like them?"

"I feel like I'm going to throw up whenever I see her."

"Unusual."

"It doesn't happen with anyone else."

"Unless you are a bird or a wolf, it makes for a pretty horrible courtship ritual."

"Do you think she might— talk to me?"

"Have you tried talking to her?"

"No, I couldn't! She'd notice me!"

"Stelian," Hermione said, turning to face him, her brown eyes rimmed with an amber glow as her power flickered across them. "Communication is the key to every relationship. Now, you can either talk to her verbally, use sign language, or write them out on a travel slate, but unless you say something, she's never going to know you like her."

"Um, okay," Stelian said, biting his lip. "Mum?"

"Hrm?"

"Can you teach me French?"

Hermione blinked and stared at her spawn with a curious arched eyebrow. "I suppose."

---

"He fancies Bill and Fleur's youngest, Aurelie."

Severus rolled his eyes. "You have to be joking. What person in their right mind would fancy a Weasley?"

Hermione sighed. "Not every Weasley is Ronald or Molly for that matter."

"Thank the gods for that," Severus answered, deadpan. "I will go put an offering to Hades on the altar in the hopes that she is swallowed by a manticore on the way to school."

Hermione huffed. "That is not the acceptable response to our son's first crush!"

Severus sighed. "Fine, I will have 'the talk' with him."

He stood, straightened his collar and walked out the door. "Stelian, attend."

Hermione heard her son scrambling to get to his father's side.

As they walked out of the living area together, Hermione heard the cacophony of owls chasing after their son and their son running for his life.

"Oh, GODS! Not again!" Stelian cried as he fanned his arms frantically over his head and ran by the window.

Severus walked behind him as if nothing was at all wrong, his face completely stoic and unimpressed.

"Owls still attracted to him whenever he's embarrassed?" Sanguini enquired as he leaned over to kiss his wife.

"Mmmhmm," Hermione said.

"I'm not quite sure if Athena approves or is laughing," he noted.

"Both," Hermione chuckled. "Severus is making him figure out the antidote on his own because he made the potion while purposely not following his instructions. It's a learning experience."

Mihail sniffed. "Severus teaching our son the contraception charm, potion, and the more generalised 'don't-stick-your-cock -in-anything-you-can't-provide-for' talk?"

"Mmhmm," Hermione said.

"Poor bastard," Mihail said sympathetically. "At least he isn't dressing the boy in a leather tunic and making him carry a sword and shield until he drops like they did with him back in the day."

"I'm not sure our son is ready to be a Spartan," Hermione confessed. "He's having enough problems being a young wizard."

"Look on the bright side," Mihail offered. "This talk will put the fear of Hades into our son, and he won't even want to masturbate for the next year for fear of the gods hitting him with a lightning bolt or some other such divine form of disapproval."

Hermione gave Sanguini the side-eye. "I love you."

Sanguini smiled. "I know."

---

"Keres," Hermione said.

Brwff? The cerberus barked as she wagged her tail.

"Spit out the groundskeeper, please."

Path-oo!

Splat.

The groundskeeper landed face-first in the rose bushes.

The temple fountain statuaries turned their water jets over to spray the man down like a Muggle deck washer.

"Tea, Hagrid?" Hermione offered.

"Uh, yes, that would be nice, thank you," the half-giant said, wincing as he picked stray thorns out of his face and beard.

"I did warn you about carrying jerky in your pockets when coming to visit."

"I um, forgot," Hagrid said.

"Mm," Hermione said, gesturing inside. "Do take off your shoes, Hagrid. We are entering the temple grounds."

"Shorry, I fergot," the half-giant mumble-stumbled as he removed his shoes and placed them by the gate where they landed on top of and smooshed all the other shoes.

Hermione's head vipers all seemed to use their fellow snakes' heads to facepalm each other. She waved her hand to arrange them neatly on the rack and led Hagrid into the temple grounds.

---

Mihail stood against the garden wall as some wizard from Hogsmeade threw a cross in front of him like a shield.

"Begone, foul demon! We do not want you here!"

Mihail flipped a page in the book he was reading. "No, thank you, I've had my fill of Christianity today, and my decor would not agree with the crucifix."

The man thrust the cross out again, bashing it against his hand as if wielding a flickering torch.

Mihail reached out, plucked the holy symbol up and placed it right-side-up in the man's hand. "It was upside-down," the vampire stated matter-of-factly. "Probably not the impression you wished to give. And your faith is deplorable."

The man stumbled and ran away, screaming.

Severus walked up to Sanguini and arched a brow. "Drunken dares from Hogsmeade again?"

"Indeed," Mihail said, pausing in his reading to give Severus a quick kiss. "I don't think he was even Christian."

"At least he didn't try to bind you in a demon summoning circle like that one idiot."

"You get the best drunken idiots, love," Sanguini said with a playful pout.

Severus sighed.

---

Stelian stood awkwardly in the doorway with Aurelie at his side only to have his parents all lifted their heads up from their books to stare at him.

"Welcome home, my son," Sanguini said.

"I, um," their son stammered.

Severus flipped a page in his book. "Bottle of contraceptive potion is on the bedside table. Don't be an idiot."

Stelian flushed bright red as he dragged Aurelie with him to his room.

"Hello!" the blushing witch said as she was promptly dragged off.

"Oh god, no! Not now!"

The sound of dozens of owls descending signalled the arrival of the welcoming parliament.

"Still hasn't figured out how to counter that potion?"

"No," Severus said unconcernedly, flipping to the next page in his book.

"Hopefully he doesn't have aspirations of becoming a political figure in the Ministry," Sanguini commented as he sipped a dark red fluid from his wine glass.

"If he can figure out how to drink a potion without hurting himself," Severus noted, "maybe he'll figure out how to survive the night."

There was a loud crash and a lot of hooting as Aurelie came out of the room covered in random feathers.

Hermione's head vipers all turned to stare at the blushing girl even while Hermione herself did not.

"Do come tell us about yourself," Hermione invited. "We have tea."

"Thank you, Lady Sanguini," the girl said quietly as she brushed off the stray owl feathers and came down to speak with them.

"Tell us of your adventures in Tahiti," Hermione said in fluent French.

Aurelie's face brightened as she chattered on in rapid French.

By the time bedtime came around, Hermione handed the witch a nightgown, witch's contraceptive potion, extra blankets, pillow, toothbrush and toothpaste, washcloth, towels, and a brush.

Aurelie gushed thanks in French and disappeared into Stelian's room.

"You talked to my parents?!" the parents heard Stelian's raspy gasp of disbelief.

"But of course, they are such wonderful people," Aurelie protested. "You really should shower, you are covered in owl feathers. I will wait."

Severus flipped a page in his book. "He may keep her."

---

"Ah, my love, she is staring at you again," Mihail said. "Do I need to challenge her to a duel of honour for her lustful intent upon my mate?"

"That is disgust, Mihail," Severus informed him.

"My mistake," Sanguini said. "I can still pull out my sword."

"Not in public, love."

"Pity," Sanguini said.

Hermione watched Molly Weasley glaring at them from the guest seating at the reception table. "Ah, some things never change," she said. "She still hasn't forgiven us for Ronald. And I think she's more upset about our son getting married than anyone else."

"He has a fine career, a beautiful home, and enough foresight to have invested his galleons into Gringotts from an early age," Severus said. "If she could have been so fortunate."

"Jealousy," Sanguini said with a sigh. "She might be rich in children, but she is woefully poor in soulful contentment."

"I don't think she's ever had contentment," Hermione said, recalling her second 'childhood.' "There was always something she wanted to fix, set into motion, to have changed."

"Dreadfully malcontent," Sanguini sniffed, brows furrowing as he watched his son kiss his new wife to the sound of cheers and the clinking of many champagne glasses. "Well, maybe she will find the gods and stop blaming us for everything wrong in her life."

"Doubtful," Severus said. "It's been how many years now? If she couldn't believe in the gods after They showed up in front of everyone, then I'm not sure what would convince her."

"You'd think she'd know better than to stare holes at a Gorgon," Hermione said with a scowl. "If it weren't for the blindfold, she'd be a statuary a hundred thousand times over."

Her head vipers all hissed in Molly's direction as if to agree.

"Gran, look what I found!" the youngest freckled red-headed spawn of George Weasley shouted just before he tripped over his own feet. The vial went flying and smashed against the wedding table, covering Molly Weasley in a light cerulean potion.

Molly's face turned bright red with embarrassment, and as if trapped in a Muggle horror movie, every single owl on the temple grounds took flight and landed on her as she shrieked in total embarrassment.

Thus attracting even more owls.

Which caused more embarrassment.

Which attracted still more owls.

Stelian flushed with embarrassment as he realised just what the Weasley child had spilled all over his grandmother.

"Wasn't that the potion you've been trying to counter for years?" Aurelie asked.

He nodded and panicked as he realised his embarrassment would summon owls.

Much to his surprise, they all gathered on Molly Weasley, and Arthur was trying in vain to shoo the birds off of her.

"Congratulations," Severus said with a smirk. "You finally found the cure. Happy wedding, my son."

Hermione, Sanguini, and Severus sipped their wine together contentedly as they listened to Molly Weasley screeching madly in indignation.

"Wasn't that the last vial of the potion you had left?" Aurelie asked her new husband.

Stelian's eyes widened. "Oh, Merlin. That was the last vial. I had set it out on the table in the—to give to one of my contacts at the wedding so he could duplicate it for study."

Severus' smile tugged at his lips and he smirked as ten years of having an owl-infested son came to a blissful, screeching end.

---

Sanguini, Severus, and Hermione sat relaxing in the garden, their backs up against Keres as her latest litter of pups tumbled about in play. They leaned back and watched the stars together, the Milky Way dancing across the sky with a brilliance that only their vampiric eyes could see.

"Did you ever imagine this is where we'd end up back when we stargazed in Greece?" Hermione asked.

"I don't think I ever believed I'd be living so close to innumerable children smashed together in a magical school in a climate that wants to freeze you off the planet one season and then blow you off the moors the next," Severus said dryly.

Hermione laughed. "I'll give you that."

"Together in the distant future, content, yes," Mihail said. "This is what I've always wanted for us. To be satisfied and happy together. To have tasks that we love. To wake up every day and see each other. To share the night with those I love. This is the dream, my love."

"When I first swore myself to Athena, I did not think there would be you both with me. I thought I would always be alone," Hermione said softly. "I trusted my goddess. I always have, but She has given me gifts without price in you both. In this life." One of her head vipers tongue flicked Mihail between the eyes, and he laughed as he rubbed its tiny head with his fingertip.

"Athena and Hades have blessed us with countless things to be thankful for, and I thank Them for it every day," Severus said. "I never thought we'd have a child to raise. Our very own. With our combined genetics somehow magically defying all Muggle science. When I was trapped as Severus Snape, I never believed I would ever have happiness. I thought I would surely die at the end of the war or during. Alone. Unloved."

"Well, I can also be smugly happy that Potter's son far surpassed him, and that he learned his father and mother's true faces just before he helped tear into Albus Dumbledore in the Great Hunt."

Sanguini tilted his head. "He does make a good Auror, admit it."

Severus grunted. "I will," he said with a sigh, "admit that he has surpassed my expectations."

"Close enough," Mihail chuckled as he smiled.

Severus grunted.

"You know what I think?" Sanguini asked.

"Hn?" Severus asked.

"I think we should ravish our wife here under the stars while whispering our praise to the gods that watch over us in our most fervent gratitude."

Severus and Sanguini exchanged looks as Hermione flicked her eyes to peer at one and then the other and then swallowed hard.

"Eeee!" Hermione squeaked as her mates promptly pounced her and worshipped her body as they said their praises to the gods that watched over them.

A little owl took off from the bubbling fountain, gliding on silent wings as it flew away toward Mount Olympus, delivering their praise and worship to the goddess. Far below, in the depths of Hades, the Lord of the Underworld and His wife smiled at each other as everything was just as it should be.

---

Fin.

---

A/N: Um… yeah this was supposed to be a short story that was inspired by a drawing I was working on while waiting for Dragon to finish her EAD piece. Well, 20k is still short for me, right? *eyedarts*

So, I am conflicted. I said I would not publish anything until Dragon completed her EAD pieces, so I guess, I will cross out Fin and say they all died horribly and no one is happy and it's all Dragon's fault.

ACK, NO! - Dragon

That isn't very nice - Hollow

A/N2: Feel free to put the Fin. back in after Dragon finishes her stories. Until then, suffer the horrible limbo of an unfinished finished piece. *Evil* Throw rocks at Dragon, but leave her eyes and hands intact so she can continue typing.

Hope you enjoyed the story.