Remembrance and Renewal by Nigel Tatsuya and Avatar Arkmage
Chapter Twenty-Three The Muggle Factor

"Dr. Casket?" Draco asked the doctor as she entered the room. "Where is Dr. Pain?"

Dr. Gasket sighed. "Dr. Payne is still not feeling well, I'll be attending you until then."

"Why doesn't he give himself a floo shot?" Draco asked.

"Flu shots only are only work before one becomes ill," Dr. Gasket explained.

"So when you're already sick, you have to let your body get better on its own?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

"He can't take a potion?" Draco asked, as he heard an additional knock on his door.

"A potion? Oh! You mean a medication?" Dr. Gasket said as she did her assessment. "Well there are medicines you can take to make yourself feel better when you're sick, but the flu itself will have to run its course. We can't cure that yet."

Draco was very tempted to tell this muggle healer that the Pepper-up potion could make quick work of the flu, but thought better of it. The knocking at the door resumed. "Aren't you gonna answer the door, Dr. Casket?"

Dr. Gasket hastily finished her work on Draco then ambled to the door. A group of muggles in suits and younger muggles in casual wear waved. "Are you Draco Malfoy?" a particularly enthusiastic middle-aged man inquired.

"Yes, I am. And who are you mu- people? More healers?"

"Us?" the man asked. "Oh no, I'm Professor Lou Bracken from Psychic Research Department of the University Hospital, and these are some of my students. May we visit with you for a while?"

Not wanting to indulge the filthy muggles, but being without so much as a house elf to occupy his time, Draco found that he desired company. These muggles seemed harmless enough. He turned to the group and nodded.

Dr. Gasket protested initially, but at Draco's insistence, she warned the group not to exhaust or distress Draco in any way and left to continue her rounds. The Professor and his students all exchanged greetings with Draco, and presented him with gifts of muggle confections, strange disk like objects with even stranger looking people on the cases, and books. Draco did not recognize many of the objects, but refrained from asking what they were. He could at least smell the chocolate in some of the parcels.

"Draco," the Professor began, kneeling beside the narrow bed. "Are you familiar with psychic phenomena?"

This time Draco couldn't help but stare blankly at the balding, bespectacled man . "No, could you explain, Professor Lubricant?"

"Certainly!" Professor Lou Bracken said, seating himself in the chair beside Draco's bed.


"Mind your hands Harry!" Cho gasped with a face at least as red at any Weasley's hair.

"HUH? What?" Harry asked, his hands over two fleshy bumps. He gasped when he realised where his hands were and quickly lowered them to Cho's diaphragm. "Oh, I'm really sorry about that. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Cho concluded from Harry's tone that the touch was innocent in nature. He probably lacked those accursed teenage hormones that made him seem almost boorish in the past besides. "No, you didn't hurt me...not at all." Cho inhaled deeply, her cheeks turning redder still. "In fact, I'm feeling up for more stunts. You?"

"Yay!" Harry cheered, as Cho took the Firebolt to velocities that were probably breaking some sort of law.

It was in the middle of performing an inverted super loop that Harry noticed a dark, shadowy blur encroaching from the North end of the Quidditch pitch. Because Cho was looping at such a high speed, Harry had trouble focussing on the newcomer, but he could discern that the figure was wearing black robes that billowed like a storm cloud around it.

"Cho!" Harry called. "Someone's coming!"

"What?" Cho responded, leaning to her left to negotiate a hard turn. "I wonder who else could be out here with us? I thought with all the patients gone, there would be no other students here until the fall?"

"I don't believe it's a student." Harry wrapped his arms tightly around Cho's chest, his tiny hands inadvertently brushing against her delicate breasts once more. "It's a Professor! Aah! It's father!"

Cho was too frightened at Professor Snape's dark expression to admonish Harry for the innocent contact again.

Compared to the Firebolt, the antiquated Shooting Star Severus rode appeared to have been stationary in midair. Cho threw the unbreakable braking charm on the Firebolt, and reversed course until she and Harry were aligned with Severus.

"You are to land at once." Severus instructed, the anger within him barely in check.

Severus swooped dangerously close to the errant pair, prompting Cho to descend rapidly, the Firebolt looking as though it were doing a defective parody of a celestial body knocked well within the proverbial Roche Radius of a planet with a particularly strong gravitational pull.

Once on the ground, Severus threw the Shooting Star back into the school broom shed and marched up to the pair, who were having trouble dismounting the Firebolt due to Cho's trembling legs. At the sight of Professor Snape's fully bared, discoloured teeth, Cho drew back even further. Neither Harry nor Cho could remember a time when Professor Snape had looked more incensed. Harry frightfully noted that his father's cheeks were rivalling his Uncle Vernon's, the only difference was that Snape's face displayed the entire gamut of crimsons as opposed to the spectrum of purples customarily sported by the livid Vernon Dursley. Cho continued to backpedal rapidly with Harry still bound securely to her back, until she tripped over her own robes and landed on her backside.

"Miss Chang," Severus began silkily, spraying Cho's now exposed legs with fine droplets of saliva as he leaned over her fallen form. "Your behaviours were most appalling! You've not only endangered yourself, but the life of another student. I would have expected actions such as those from supercilious Gryffindors, who have less intelligence than conceit."

"I- I'm s-sorry Professor Snape." Cho said, her voice unsteady with trepidation as she scooted away from the towering professor. "I shouldn't have done what I did. It was really stupid of me to do something so dangerous and... AAAYYY!"

Professor Snape dropped to the ground and regarded Cho and Harry in turn with a malevolent glare. Having a foothold now, Harry climbed out of his harness and backed away from his father as well. At the moment, Harry was truly afraid of him. He wasn't even sure that Severus wouldn't beat him...or both of them for that matter. "I'm sorry fa-Professor Snape. Please don't be angry at us, we were just having fun..."

"If your idea of fun is to adorn the quidditch pitch with your spattered internal organs, might I suggest you find an alternate pursuit?" Severus sneered. "If this had occurred during the school session, be assured I would not hesitate to deduct house points from both of you and assign you detentions for the next month if you weren't expelled for your sheer stupidity!"

"I'm sorry sir. It was all my fault..." Cho mewled, still trembling violently. She backed away further, her robes riding up enough to expose her blue and gold knickers, which featured animated cats who also seemed to be cowering from Professor Snape.

"Mr. Potter," Severus admonished. "Are you so arrogant that even in your undeveloped, and immature state you still feel the need to show off?"

"N-no, sir. I wasn't trying to be arrogant."

"One who is already arrogant by his very nature need not try! Mr Potter, are you so desperate for any kind of attention that you employ your friends to show off for you when you yourself cannot do so on your own?" Severus recommenced. "Miss Chang, have you no more sense than a vainglorious Gryffindor? You do realize that you've endangered the life of another student as well as your own?"

"Professor Snape," it almost hurt to call his father by his proper title, "please don't be m-mad at Cho," little Harry whimpered shakily. "I teased her about how Ravenclaws are really smart, but aren't brave at all. And I made fun of them for how they can't do stunts and all. I made her do this to prove me wrong."

"Sir, Harry didn't force me to do those stunts. I did them on my own accord, I was the one who was showing off." Cho said, still too shaken to right herself, leaving the cats on her knickers looking even more petrified with fear than they were just a few moments ago. "I so wanted to prove to him that Ravenclaw, though we've not won the House Cup in many a year, is not merely house of studious cowards. But I've foolishly risked his life...and mine. And I'm sorry, I know nothing can make up for it. Harry is such a sweet little boy, and he has such a kind heart. If anything had happened to him..."

To make matters even worse than they already were, Cho started sobbing, which gave Harry unspoken permission to follow suit.

"But I'm fine father...uh... Professor Snape." Harry crawled over to Severus and hugged his legs. "I know if I got hurt, I couldn't be healed. I'd have weeks of painful healing to do. Or maybe I'd have been too hurt to be healed, and maybe I would...DIE!" Harry starting wailing so hard that he could barely speak coherently. "And then I'd have to go back to being your angel son again... then I'd be so sad! I wouldn't get to hug you anymore, or talk to you, or play with the soap toys you make, or eat with you, or tell you that I love..." Harry fully broke down, as did Cho.

The urge to strike Harry came and went like an errant breeze on the surface of Severus's thoughts. He instead shrugged away from Harry's embrace. "SILENCE! What sort of nonsense is this then? Have you gone mental?" Severus Snape was about to concoct a lie to Harry's proclamations, but said nothing when he saw that Cho did not react. Had Harry told Cho of their being father and son?

Harry fell to the grass and hid his face in his hands.

For at least three times in succession, Severus opened his mouth to admonish the two youths before him, but he could find nothing suitable to say. He was far more accustomed to students blaming each other for their transgressions, yet Harry and Cho were each blaming THEMSELVES outright. This was unexpected, and not right.

Ultimately, it made little sense to lecture them on the idiocy of their actions, for both of them seemed to know the possible consequences too well. Berating them further would be unnecessary, as they were doing a fine job of it already on their own. The irony of the whole situation made Severus want to laugh. The sight of the pathetic children crying their hearts out in contrition made his own eyes water slightly. Being a man that was not very proficient at any display of emotion, Severus pondered the feasibility of doing both simultaneously.

Severus leaned over the two recumbent students on the grass. "As you are both determined to shoulder the blame, Miss Chang, Mr. Potter, you are to report to the dungeons for detention first thing tomorrow morning."

"Yes sir." Both of them whimpered.

"And Miss Chang," Severus averted his eyes at the sight of the animated cats on Cho's knickers staring at him and wiping at their eyes with their paws. "In the name of decency, cover yourself."

Cho blushed redder than Harry had guessed human cheeks could go. She had not realized that her knickers had been showing and was incredibly chagrined at the thought that Professor Snape now knew she still wore animated underwear, something younger witches and wizards did. She stood quickly and adjusted the bottom of her robes, blushing even more fiercely when she noticed that Harry was grinning at one of the cats on her hip who was in turn grinning back at him.

"Uh...I'll be with my Grandfather if either of you need anything of me... goodbye." Cho waved shyly at Harry and bowed respectfully to Severus before sprinting back toward the castle, her blue and gold robes flying about her.

Severus picked up Harry's Firebolt, and father and son walked side by side back to the castle. "Harry, I am very disappointed in your actions."

Harry started wiping at his eyes and sniffling again. "I know, father. I'm so sorry. I guess I'm not only a child, I'm a stupid one as well."

Severus' long strides quickly put him several metres in front of his son, requiring him to pause every few paces to allow Harry to catch up. "Why did you do such a foolish thing? Not only could you both have died from your reckless manoeuvres, but being outside the castle exposes you to other dangers. You were flying so close to the upper wards that you might have been seen!"

"I know father, I shouldn't have made fun of Cho like that, it's not her fault she's so sad. I should have told her she didn't have to fly so high for me to believe that she was brave." Harry scrubbed at his eyes. "I know that it is not true that Ravenclaws are all brains and nothing more.

"Then why..."

Harry stopped moving. His eyes were so full of tears that he could no longer see where he was going. When Severus stopped once more to allow the boy time to catch up, the boy ambled unsteadily toward him and wrapped his arms around his waist. "Cho's grandfather is dying. No one can make him well." Harry's lower lip was trembling violently now. "Because I have a grandparent too now, I know how she must be suffering. If grandmother was dying, I couldn't bear it! I'd want to die too, just so I wouldn't have to live without her again. I love grandmother so much, and Cho...well I see how she is, and how she loves her grandfather just as much! Cho is sad because her grandfather is dying!"

Severus looked down at the boy, who had his head buried in Severus' lower abdominal region. "I just wanted to make her smile a little. Make her not so sad, even if it was only for a little while. Now because she thinks she could have killed me, she must be even more sad than she was before."

"Would you have me believe that you were not trying to show off?"

"NO!" Harry screamed. "I wasn't trying to show off! Well maybe after we were flying around a bit, I wanted to show off a little, but the reason I asked Cho to come fly on my broom was because I wanted Cho to forget about being so sad, even for a little while!"

Severus knelt beside his son and patted his back. Harry was sobbing so much that he could barely stay on his feet. He threw his arms around his father's neck both for support as well as comfort. "Why do nice people have to die anyway? Why do bad people live so long? It's not fair... It's not fair! Why can't good people be rewarded for being good by living twice as long as the bad people?"

"I do not know." Severus lamented, attempting to free himself from his son's embrace.

"I couldn't do anything to save mother, and my other father James." Harry bawled, the guilt in the young boy's face markedly evident. "I couldn't do anything to save Cedric, or Sirius. I just wanted to die too when I thought I had killed you last week! I deserved to die for that. I felt so sad that I couldn't do anything for you..."

Unable to make Harry release him, Severus wrapped his long arms around Harry. He regretted scolding either of them now, and the boy was already feeling badly. Why did a mere sixteen year old have to be burdened by the weight of his own guilt? The fact that a six year old would have to also bear such a weight was unthinkable.

"... but I'm so glad Madam Pomfrey, Dr. Chang, Fawkes and Professor Dumbledore could save you!" Harry wailed, clutching handfuls of Severus' hair. "I only wish I could have done something to help you too."

''You've done more than you'll ever know.' Severus thought to himself, knowing that it was Harry who had attempted to save him by spelling the potion out of his body. That had nearly killed him, and could have potentially killed Harry too, but what was the act if not selfless on the boy's part? Thoughtless, yes, but selfless.

"And Cho can't do anything for Grandpa Chang but watch him die!" Harry squeezed the fabric of his father's robes. "She must be so sad right now!"

Whatever tirade Severus had been contemplating to hurl at Harry earlier dissolved. He was only trying to spare another person the grief he himself had experienced over and over again. Knowing that Harry was both physically and emotionally exhausted, Severus stood with Harry held securely in his arms.

"Oh father!" Harry said, resting in head on Severus' shoulders and wrapping his legs around his torso. The feeling of being carried, filling him with more comfort than he had ever known before. "If I knew how to make a potion that would make good people immortal, I would make enough for every kind person in the world to give to the people they love." Harry smiled once more when Severus resumed walking toward the castle, still holding him in his arms. "And you know who I would give that first phial of potion to?"

Severus lifted Harry onto his shoulder as he started to walk faster. "Who?"

"You, of course." Harry wrapped his arm around his father's head. "And I'd make sure you drank all of it, because of all the lives you saved by risking your own life. You probably earned a billion years to live. And I'd also make sure you drink all of it because I love you so much."

Had anyone offered Severus a chance at immortality a month ago, he would have thought it a damnation rather than a gift. More years of life had been synonymous with more years of torture, stress, perilous employment and grief. Now at least, Severus would consider more years to be a mixed blessing. He would still endure the same baneful existence, but somehow, With Harry, it was a little more bearable.

No, Harry did NOT just make life bearable. Severus found that Harry made him feel useful. No, much more than useful. Perhaps he felt worthwhile now...

And he felt loved. For the first time in years, he felt loved again, and he could not explain to himself why he deserved it. Try as he might, reasons eluded him. Then again, Lily had loved him in much the same manner, without clear reasons. Without Severus's deserving an iota of it.

After how cruel Severus had been to Harry over the years... and how he had unintentionally denied Harry the chance at growing up with a caring parent ... How could Harry still want to give him the gift of immortality? How could the boy love him?

Somewhere deep in his consciousness, Severus knew that his death would not be too far in the future. With the war escalating, and Voldemort becoming ever more tyrannous, he knew his time was nearly at an end.

Silently, Severus begged whatever power or deity that might have been listening for just a little more time. Time for Harry to be old enough to inherit and manage property. Time for him to teach Harry things he would need to know to succeed in life. Time for him to pass on some of the knowledge a parent passes on to a child...about one's heritage, about one's traditions, and about one's values. Finally, Severus asked for a little more time with Harry for its own sake. He paused, wondering why he would ask for something so frivolous, but could find no ready answer.


Unnoticed by the many muggle investigation units milling around the blast site, Arthur Weasley and Perkins made their way through the rubble of the railroad station at Hogsteader, a small muggle village a few kilometres outside of Hogsmeade. There had been a series of explosions at the station that morning, occurring immediately after one of the muggle lines arrived at its platform. The blasts were so damaging, that the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department was called upon to join in the investigation. The Aurors who were initially at the scene were convinced that some one had charmed the train to destroy itself upon its arrival at Hogsteader.

Perkins, despite coughing frequently from the clouds of dust and noxious smoke from the explosion, stubbornly pressed onward, searching the area for signatures of magic.

"Sir," Arthur said to his boss after roughly an hour. He held a handkerchief over his nose and mouth, but gagged frequently nonetheless. His body was still convalescing from the hexes he had received just weeks ago. "There's no sign of magic in the area... or even in what remains of the train. This is a weapon of the muggles own creation."

"Foolish warmongers!" Perkins muttered, examining what appeared to be some charred wires and the remnants of a train's steel siding. "Making weapons like these! They kill indiscriminately! Good and bad alike, even the women and children!"

Arthur shivered as he stepped through a large puddle of blood which had some unidentifiable chunks of flesh dispersed through it. "Such a cruel thing to do indeed!" Arthur said, surveying the carnage.

"To think you helped author the Muggle Protection Act," Perkins said, tossing a broken pipe back to the pavement after running his wand over it. "Even if there were no Death Eater loyalists to hurt the muggles, the muggles seem to find ways to hurt themselves."

"With the exception of our own concealment charms, there are no other traces of magic in the vicinity." Tonks declared to her colleagues, near enough to Arthur and Perkins for them to hear.

"It would appear the muggles are growing ever more ingenious with their weapons." Arthur said, feeling a familiar twinge of fascination at their resourceful, non-magical counterparts. As repulsed as he was, the muggles still amazed him.

"They did all this without magic?" one of the new recruits gasped.

Arthur was about to respond when he heard a soft whimpering from beneath a pile of rubble nearby. At first he thought it was nothing more than the sound of steel dragging against stone, until he saw long red hair fanning out from beneath the detritus. Upon moving closer, he was stunned to see a muggle toddler struggling feebly to free itself.

Unable to bear watching the muggle child suffer, Arthur proceeded to levitate some of the rubble away. He quickly grew exhausted at the task, for the pieces of rubble were heavy and he was not at his full strength yet.

"Mr. Weasley!" Tonks forestalled him. "You can't! Let the muggle paramedics help the child!"

Arthur paused to take several deep breaths, then after determining there were no other muggles watching, Arthur cast off his concealment charm and moved closer. He knelt beside the little girl, and saw that she had been partially crushed by the weight of the steel. "Hello little one, are you all right?"

The tiny girl looked at him with her large green eyes, her red lashes matted together by her own tears. She tried to answer, but only made a few weak groans. For a moment, Arthur was reminded of a younger version of his own daughter Ginny. Heedless of the consequences, Arthur could not turn his back on the little one's suffering, and cast a few healing charms on the toddler before any of the other witches or wizards on the scene could stop him.

"Weasley!" chided Perkins when he saw what was transpiring. "She's a muggle! We cannot interfere in their affairs! Let the muggle healers deal with-"

"This is more than a mere muggle affair!" With that, Arthur cast as much of the rubble aside as his weakened body would allow. Furiously, he then cast every healing charm he knew until the girl's breathing returned to some semblance of normal. At last, Arthur took off his long, tattered outer robes, spelled them warm and covered the shivering toddler with it.

Having no energy left to stand, he eventually slumped on the pavement next to the young child. The muggle girl still could not move, but at least she seemed to be able to breathe with less pain. "Not to worry, she's just a baby," Arthur heaved, reclining on a flat chunk of concrete nearby. "She won't tell anyone about us. And even if she does, the muggles probably won't believe her. Children around her age often have imaginary friends anyway."

The little girl turned to face Mr. Weasley and smiled as if to say ''thank you.'

"I'll be nothing more than an imaginary friend to her." Arthur said, slowly catching his breath.


"Bloody warlike, muggles!" Severus thought to himself later that evening. He added a dollop of bland shampoo base to his wet hair and worked it through so vigorously that he ended up forming stubborn knots and snarls that would probably need to be cut rather than combed out.

Although he had managed to hide all traces of it from Harry, Severus was in a very foul mood. Reckless Quidditch manoeuvres aside, it was not what gnawed at him most at the moment.

Severus had wanted to take Harry to Snape Manor. Because Harry could not travel via magical means, and using the Knight bus would have attracted too much attention to themselves, Severus had purchased tickets on the muggle railway to London. From there, they could find alternate muggle transportation to the rural area outside of Hammersmith, where Snape Manor was located.

The news article depicting the bombing of the train station had angered him greatly. The enchanted picture on the front page of the Daily Prophet showed the smoking pile of rubble which had once been the station in Hogsteader, the muggle town just outside of Hogsmeade. The station where Severus and Harry would have boarded the train to London.

Now, he could not take Harry to the home that would one day be rightfully his. In the very near future, if Voldemort continued his descent into tyranny and killed Snape, Harry would be the rightful lord of Snape Manor. Although Severus had no desire to reside at Snape Manor himself, he knew Harry should not be denied the chance to see what he would someday inherit. Knowing that Voldemort could easily kill Severus in the near future, he really wanted to show Harry the manor...before he died.

After pulling chunks of his hair out in an unsuccessful attempt to untangle it, Severus stepped out of the shower, and began wiping his long hair with a heavy towel. He looked over to the bathtub, wondering what kind of misadventures Harry had managed to get the soap merpeople, the water mocassin, and the Loch Ness creature into. He was rather surprised to see Harry staring at him, absently twirling the water mocassin within the tiny fingers of his uninjured hand.

"What? Why are you staring at me?" Severus asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious when Harry did not look away. He held the towel over his groin. "Surely I have nothing you yourself do not already have?"

"I was just thinking." Harry began, still looking at his father's body. "You're a pureblood right?"

Severus, who was already uncomfortable at Harry's unwavering gaze, could not answer. "Your point?"

"Well, I noticed that other than the fact that you have a whole lot of scars and your skin and hair is a different colour," Harry began, looking with pity at the many pinkish-silvery marks which riddled his father's body," well, uh...you're not all that different from Uncle Vernon."

Severus was tempted to ask Harry if he was trying to insult him, but decided against it. He knew the boy adored him too much to do that. The boy only reminded him of that admiration several times a day. "Well I should hope our... anatomy... would not vary significantly. As much as I would like to think otherwise, both your Uncle Vernon and I are males of the same species."

"That's one thing that I'm confused about." Harry leaned back and sunk neck-deep in the soothing herbal water. "If we're all the same species, wizards and muggles I mean, why is there so much prejudice? Like why do people look down so much on muggle born wizards and witches?"

Severus stopped in the middle of shrinking a nightshirt for Harry to wear, and looked at the boy, not knowing what to say. There had been prejudice in both the magical and muggle worlds in the past over differences in skin and hair colour, territories, as well as for cultural differences. But why there existed prejudice on the part of magical people toward the non-magical people was something Severus had never thought much on. He accepted it as something that just existed, but not the rationale for it.

"And what about those first wizards and witches." Harry turned his lacerated hand over in the bowl of dissolved healing herbs. "Where did they come from?"

Severus's head appeared to get caught in the collar of his own nightshirt as he shrugged his arms into the sleeves. The face that eventually emerged from the collar looked very perplexed indeed. "There exist legends in our world about the first magical people..."

"Ooh! Tell me?" Harry said, looking excited.

"In one legend, there was a magical deity who was exhausted at having to care for all the humans." Severus began, straining to remember a story his mother had told him when he was not much younger than Harry was at the moment. "So the deity created magical people to help the other humans."

"Did the magical god make the magical people just appear?" Harry closed his eyes as Severus gently rinsed away the soap and herb residue from his body. "Or did they get borned?"

"Some of the wizarding story books say the deity made the magical people appear." Severus replied as he wrapped a towel around Harry and lifted him out of the tub, "your grandmother used to tell me the deity implanted the magical people in the uteruses of their mothers."

"You mean in their mother's tummies?" Harry asked.

Severus nodded, patting Harry dry with a large flourescent pink and green towel that he suspected Albus had planted in his chambers as a cornball joke.

"So... if that is correct, then that means that all wizards, even the Malfoy's ancestors were originally muggle born?" Harry deduced.

The towel dropped to the floor. Severus had never thought of that before. He knew it of course, just never considered it seriously. It was amazing how a young mind could sometimes see things the older ones could not.

End Part Twenty-Three