Remembrance and Renewal by Avatar Arkmage and Nigel Tatsuya
Chapter Thirty-Four: The Darkest Phase
Greatly diminished by his illness, Severus's punch neither bruised Harry's jaw, nor caused him to lose consciousness. The blow merely sent him backpedaling until he landed forcefully on his backside. The vial, still Harry's palm, shattered.
"Aaaaaah!! Aaaah!" wailed Harry, holding the slightly reddening spot on his cheek where Severus's fist had struck him. Although his hand burned where the potion seeped into the newly-incised glass cuts, the fact that his father had hit him, however lightly, caused his cheek to hurt as though Severus had struck him at full force.
"What have you done to yourself, Potter?" Severus fell back onto his pillow and sneered. "Your stature is that of a young child. Were you so vain, that you, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew attempted to brew an age-altering potion on your own? With the exception of Lupin, the lot of you barely possess the competence required to brew a pot of tea! How could you even hope to attempt a proper age modifier?"
Harry only stared at Severus and whimpered.
"Were you hoping sneak past an age line, Potter? Hoping to impress Evans again? Or were you merely attempting to rid yourself of acne?"
"Waaaaaaaaaaaah!!"
"Silence, Potter!" Severus held two pillows against his ears to muffle the sound of the boy's voice. "It repulses me that the blood pumping through your vainglorious heart is the same as mine!"
The words ripped through Harry like venom injected directly into his spinal column. The stinging in his palm, and throbbing in his cheek, quickly faded into the background. "The blood pumping through my vainglorious heart...? The same...WHAT? You're repulsed?"
"Harry, your father is not referring to you right now." Lucien sank into the floor until he was at eye-level with Harry.
"He said...he said..." Harry began to weep convulsively. "I repulse him!"
"Harry, heed what I am saying. Your father's feverishness is impacting his rational processes. His current animosity is directed toward another, not you." Lucien wrapped his spectral arms around his living grandson's trembling form. "Severus loves you. He may have been too stubborn to ever say that to you, but I have watched both of you for many a day on the grounds. I sense only love in his actions towards you."
"He did mean to say that I repulse him! Who else is related to him by blood?" Harry glanced at Severus, who was once again struggling against an assailant only he could see. "Hang on, Grandfather; not even you and father have the same blood, am I right?"
"That is correct, but that is a story for another time." Lucien rose until he was a few centimetres off the floor, then faded away. He reappeared in the room a few seconds later, bearing a second phial of potion. Fortunately, he had thought to brew more than would be needed, in the event the first bottle failed to work or was destroyed. "Sevvie, take your potion."
"YOU?" Severus began shivering and feebly scooted away. "What are you doing here?"
"Take your potion." Lucien ordered.
Severus responded by trying to flee, but the heavy loss of blood left him far too weak to stand. He took hold of a glass candelabra next to the bed and broke it against the night stand. "You will keep your distance, Lupin!!" Severus held a jagged edge of the broken candelabra in front of him like a clear blade. "Is it not enough that you nearly killed me during the last full moon?"
In the time required for him to draw a full breath, Severus's expression changed once more, and took on a childlike cast. He turned to Lucien and began to cry in terror. "Is mother still alive?"
Lucien closed his eyes and clenched his jaw so firmly that Harry thought he saw ghostly blood ooze over his teeth.
"Why did you beat her again?" Severus sobbed in a child's cadence, his dark eyes wide, beseeching. "Why do you always beat us? I think my ribs are broken. It hurts to breathe, and mother couldn't walk this afternoon. Why...why did you attack her again?"
Lucien turned away, spectral tears glistening on his pallid cheeks.
"Oh!" Severus cried, retreating beneath the covers. "You're angry now. Oh no, please no, don't hurt me. Please don't hurt me. I'll be a good lad! Don't beat me again! If you do, I'll surely die, and then you'll have no one besides mother to..!"
"Grandfather..." Harry adjured, "...he needs his potion. Force him to take the potion now! He's becoming more and more sick."
Lucien nodded, wiping his face unnecessarily and taking a series of deep cleansing breaths before continuing. "SEVERUS!" It was the thunderous voice Harry was more accustomed to hearing from Lucien. The spectre floated directly over Severus's bed and moved his hand threateningly to where his belt buckle would have been. "TAKE YOUR POTION!"
Severus wailed.
"TAKE YOUR POTION AT ONCE!"
"FATHER! Father please, please don't force me to drink that potion!" Severus screamed, clutching Lucien's sleeve. "I cannot endure any more pain! I know about the dark potions used for punishment! Oh, I should not have told you, but yes, I've studying your potion tomes, so I know about those torture potions..."
"YOU WILL DRINK THIS POTION!" Lucien shouted in his best imitation of his former self. "TAKE IT, OR I SHALL GIVE YOU A BEATING YOU'LL NOT SOON FORGET!!"
Severus looked even more terrified than before, as though he had been hit with a petrification spell. Lucien roughly grabbed a handful of Severus's hair, snapped his head back, and pried his mouth open. The younger man was trembling so much, Harry wondered if he could even swallow properly. Lucien poured the potion in slowly, making sure to allow ample time for the thick potion to coat the inside of Severus's mouth as it trickled down his throat.
"Please father, don't hurt me anymore." Severus looked at Lucien with wide, innocent eyes that nearly broke Harry's heart. The boy, who still dwelt within Severus braced, as though to fend off a blow. "I'm sorry, father, really. I'll be good..."
Lucien smoothed Severus's hair from his face and coaxed his head back onto the pillow.
Severus refused to relinquish his sire's sleeve, and clung as though he might fall to his death otherwise. "Don't go, please don't go. Mother cannot survive another..." And with that, Severus closed his eyes, and succumbed once more to the blissful course of oblivion.
"Now it is in your hands, Sevvie." Lucien said, placing a loving kiss on his son's forehead. "I command you to fight your illness. That is an order! You will not leave your son when he needs you most, I forbid you to join me in death as long as Harry needs you!"
"Won't the potion cure him?" Harry asked, wiping at his eyes with his uninjured hand.
"There is no 'cure' for most of the viruses that cause the haemorrhagic fever, but the potion we've brewed together should enhance his body's defences against it."
Lucien sank through the floor in front of Harry, and summoned a set of forceps. Harry removed his hand from his cheek, to better allow his grandfather to inspect the area where Severus had struck him.
"Wounds inflicted by those who ought to love and protect you are the most painful." Lucien muttered more to himself than to Harry.
The only response from Harry was quiet sobbing.
The spectre gingerly eased the hand that held the shattered phial from Harry's side, and only then did Harry notice the shards of glass embedded in his flesh. Lucien applied an anaesthetising salve onto Harry's tiny hand, and when numbness set in, began carefully removing the shards of glass. "Haemorrhagic fever, depending on the agent that caused it, can have a recovery rate of as little as one percent. This potion should increase your father's chances of recovery greatly."
"But he will recover?"
"Your father is a obstinate man. He's survived The Dark Lord and his minions for many years." Lucien's voice ebbed, ghostly tears threatening once more. "Severus has survived a brutish lout of a father like me. Surely you do not think he will allow a mere virus to kill him."
Harry did not miss the fact that his grandfather did not give him a very clear answer. Another question bit at him more fervently.
"Grandfather." Harry winced as one of the larger fragments of the phial was removed. "I noticed when you went for your...your belt...well...you didn't have one..."
"Severus dressed me in these clothes prior to my burial. It is the same type of attire I typically wore in life, except for one thing..."
"Father didn't put your belt on?"
"Evidently."
"Well, good job you wouldn't have to worry about your trousers falling down whilst you're a ghost." Harry said, feeling immense relief when Lucien rubbed additional anaesthetizing/antimicrobial salve on the glass cuts. "But I think I can understand why father didn't want to bury you with your belt on."
Lucien nodded grimly. He summoned bandaging materials and began wrapping Harry's hand. "How Sevvie must have suffered whilst I lived. He probably could not even bear to look at my belts." Lucien watched his now unconscious son breaking into a cold sweat. "I hated using that accursed tone again with him just now..."
"...You had to, Grandfather. He wouldn't have taken his medicine otherwise." Harry finished, watching Severus writhing in his potion induced unconsciousness. "Maybe he won't remember any of this, with his fever so high."
"There are so many things I wish dear Severus could forget..." Lucien sighed, still holding onto Harry's bandaged hand.
Harry could not forget the things Severus had said to him. "But why did father say that it repulsed him that we had the same blood?" Harry started to cry again. The pain of Severus's rejection resonated through him deeply. "Fever or not, he must really think that if he would say it at all!"
"Harry, as I've stated before, your father was not referring to you then." Lucien soothed, helping Rastus replace some of the blood soaked linens on Severus's bed with clean ones. "In his mind, he was talking to someone else."
"Who else could he have been saying that too?" Harry sobbed, wondering if Severus might have been referring to James Potter, but then James Potter was not related to the Rogues...was he? "He wouldn't have said that to Grandmother?"
"Another..." Lucien started floating toward the doorway.
Harry ran after him. "WHO?"
"I am not certain that I should be the one to discuss this matter with you." Lucien continued to float away from Harry, but the boy pursued him.
"So you do know!" Harry grabbed at the back of Lucien's robes, but his hands passed right through them. Evidently ghosts, particularly Lucien's ghost, could choose when to be semi-solid, and when to be completely ghostlike. "If I have another relative, I have a right know!" Harry was chasing after his grandsire so ardently that he ran right through him when the spectre suddenly stopped.
"Harry, have you eaten anything today?" This time, Lucien knelt before Harry, rather than sinking through the floor. "With your father unable to care for you and all..."
Harry had, in fact, initially refused to eat that morning. Of late, he found that he no longer enjoyed eating alone, and told Rastus he would not eat at all until his father could join him. Eventually, Rastus managed to convince Harry to eat a meagre bowl of porridge with him.
Now that grandfather had brought the subject up, Harry suddenly realized he was very hungry. "No, but I'm not hungry at all." Harry lied. "Why are you changing the subject anyway? If you know something, grandfather, please tell me!"
A rather audible growl escaped from somewhere within Harry's belly before Lucien could reply. Lucien grinned smugly and lowered his white-haired head toward Harry's torso as if to better listen for a second telling rumble. "You may not believe that you're hungry, but your digestive tract has just made its needs known."
"Grandfather! Please answer me!" Harry implored. "If you don't, I'm going to continue to think that father meant to say those cruel things to me! And I'm going to think that you just told me that father didn't mean to say those things so I wouldn't feel sad, but I'm going to continue feeling sad because you won't tell me who father was really referring to. And if father really wanted to insult someone other than me, I'm going to keep right on wondering who that person is, and that is if I really believe that there was another person, but you won't tell me who he is. And if father really did mean to tell me that he was repulsed that we shared the same blood, then I'm going to cry and I'm not going to stop for a long long time."
"Very well..." Lucien said, not wanting Harry to cry again. "...I suppose there are matters that you'll find out eventually. So perhaps it would be better if you learned them from a member of your own family, than from other sources..."
Harry threw his arms around Lucien, who was semisolid once more.
"Come, you must have some nourishment." Lucien lifted Harry into his arms, and floated into the dining room where Rastus had prepared a simple meal of stew, bread, tea, pumpkin juice and treacle tarts. After excusing himself to wash his hands in one of the nearby bathrooms, Harry joined the others at the table.
Harry was amazed at Rastus's ingenuity. All the while he had been assisting Severus, Rastus had also been simmering the stew, baking bread, and making tarts. A simpler meal than the elf typically served, but considering that Harry spent the majority of his early life starving, he soon found his mouth watering with anticipation.
Harry was surprised to see Lucien sit beside him at the table as well. "Wow! Can you really eat? I didn't know ghosts could..."
"Not in the same way a living person can," Lucien replied, ladling stew from the tureen first to Harry's plate, then to his own, as though he were serving himself, but putting nothing on his plate. "Although I no longer require nourishment, I can remember how many foods tasted and I can still sense aromas. I've dined this way often with Rastus when had his meals in Snape Manor. He is a most pleasant companion."
From his place directly across Lucien, Rastus bowed reverently as he buttered his bread. "You is a kind spirit, sir." Harry ate a few spoonfuls of stew and munched his bread. As always, the flavourings of the foods were exquisite, but something else gnawed at Harry's consciousness. "So grandfather, you still haven't answered my question."
Lucien raised his hand to tell Harry to wait, as he moved the fork from his mouth and began chewing as though he had just taken a large portion. He went through the motion of swallowing before replying. "Very well, Harry. Your father was referring to his biological brother."
Harry choked on a carrot. "His BROTHER?! But I've never seen a brother in Snape Manor..."
"He grew up in another home." Lucien answered, taking the empty teacup to his lips and pretending to drink. "As you have mentioned to me, you know already that I am not Severus's biological father. Well, Severus's real father also sired another son."
Harry went white. "Who...who is the son? And who is father's real father, then?"
"You would not have known Sevvie's real father..."
"But you did?"
Lucien nodded, moving his fork to and from the plate and 'chewing.' "The son's father's family were well known in the wizarding community and were friends of my family."
"WHO? Your 'friend' had a name didn't he?"
"His name was Potter." Lucien replied quickly. He had grown frustrated that Harry simply would not let the matter drop. Ordinarily, children could be satisfied with highly simplified answers. Not so with Harry. "His son, Severus's biological half-brother, is James Potter."
Harry dropped his teacup into his plate of stew, sending gravy in all directions. Even when Rastus sprang from his seat to clean the mess, Harry sat motionless.
Although things made even less sense than before, some things instantaneously became more clear to Harry. The animosity between Severus Snape and James Potter made more sense than before. In Severus's pensieve, he had heard James Potter give his reason for harassing Severus as "...it's more the fact that he exists." So he wasn't attacking father simply because father was in the vicinity, but because Severus existed at all. Just because he was alive. What Harry had witnessed in the pensieve was not mere bullying, but an extreme form of sibling rivalry. Had James Potter seen Severus as a rival to his inheritance? Had the rape of Mervidith Rogue, and the subsequent birth of Severus been such a shame on the Potter family that James hated Severus on that fact alone? Did Severus resent James for being the legitimate Potter heir; for having a comparatively luxurious life whilst Severus lived under the heavy hand of Lucien Snape?
"We never intended to let Severus know of his true paternity, no child wants to know they were conceived under such circumstances. As far as your grandmother and I were concerned, Severus was OUR son. We did not wish Severus to think otherwise. Unfortunately, the Potters either told James, or else James found out about Severus on his own. Whatever the case, James Potter informed Severus of it and harassed him mercilessly. James never missed the opportunity to make it known that Severus was the bastard child." Lucien continued, 'ladling' more stew onto his very clean plate.
Harry also helped himself to more stew, and began gnashing his teeth while chewing on the tender vegetables within. He still loved James Potter, because he had initially raised him, but he also loved Severus for nurturing him now. Anger rose in Harry's abdomen, threating to burn a hole in his stomach and duodenum. So one of those pure bloods who raped Mervidith Rogue was James Potter's father?!
"When Severus initially owled me about what James Potter had told him, I flooed over to Hogwarts immediately to explain matters..." contrition spread across Lucien's features.
"You beat father for even asking about it?" Harry hazarded.
"I hurt him so badly, that I had to take him to St. Mungos that weekend. Potter and his friends had already charmed Severus's broom to malfunction. Severus was thrown from it and consequently injured. He was already in the infirmary when I arrived at Hogwarts. At the time, I was very angry that Severus had allowed those pestilent Gryffindor boys assault him."
Harry wiped his eyes on his napkin.
"I asked the school nurse to leave us alone for a while." Lucien went on, tears appearing in his icy blue eyes. "Then I beat Severus for his weakness, as well as his audacity to even doubt that I was his father. At the time, I could not understand how Severus might have been feeling. Finding out that he had been conceived by rape can be very traumatic. All I could see, was that he allowed himself to lose to a group of Gryffindors."
Lucien lowered his head in humility. "I did not confirm his true paternity, because in my mind, Severus was my son, and for him to even question that, enraged me." Lucien wiped a ghostly tear away from his cheeks. "Severus did not cry out as I thrashed him, he just cried and endured the pain quietly. When I finally realized what I was doing, he was unconscious."
"Poor father." sobbed Harry.
"Indeed. I informed the nurse that I wanted the mediwizards at St Mungos to sort him out, and I left Hogwarts with him..."
Harry could barely get his head around what his Grandfather had just disclosed. The beating. If Severus's weak punch had hurt Harry so much, how badly must being beaten until you needed to be hospitalized feel? How much worse must it feel when your own father put you there?
"I don't know whether Severus truly believed that James Potter was his brother. The two of them hated one another from their first year. Judging from how many times Potter and his mates assaulted Sevvie though, he was reminded of it quite often." Lucien sighed, putting the empty fork to his lips once more. "If there were a way that I could take some of the pain that Severus endured away from him, I would not hesitate to do so."
"Well... why don't you just tell father you're sorry then? I can tell that you truly are sorry for all the bad things you did to him, but father doesn't know. He might not forgive you right away, but telling him is a start." Harry began sobbing again. "He was afraid of you, granddad! Father's really scared of you even now. He still has nightmares about you beating him, and he thinks he's just a big disappointment to you. He doesn't even know if you love him. I know, because sometimes I can feel things that he is feeling, especially when he's really sad or scared."
Lucien blinked his eyes in astonishment. Might fathers and sons sometimes share such close empathic connections?
"And one night, I found him outside on the porch of the other Snape Manor...he was very sad. He wouldn't tell me exactly what he was sad about, but I saw that he was looking toward Snape Manor One and trying not to cry."
Lucien hid his face in his hands.
"Before I woke up to look for him, I dreamed father was terrified of coming home because of you. And when I did find him, he was looking so sadly in the direction of Snape Manor One."
"I was staring back at him that night, Harry." Lucien rose and started to help Rastus clear the table. "I watched Sevvie trying to hold that same straight face that I forced him to wear whilst I lived. I even saw him go to strike you when you tried to console him...but Rastus would not allow it."
Harry wrapped his arms around Rastus, as did Lucien, when the part elf began sobbing. "Thank you for all that you've done, Rastus."
"Rastus does not deserve such kindness from wizards." he loaded the dishes and serving vessels into a tray and bore them away quickly. "Rastus is used to mistreatment by his owners."
"You don't deserve it. You didn't deserve it then." Harry objected, following the octarelf into the kitchen. "Never say that you do! And besides, father never meant to hit either of us."
"Rastus, do you know that a spirit's eyes do not see all the same things as a living person can?" Lucien said, floating through the wall and into the kitchen. "Do you know what I see when I look at you, Rastus?"
The octarelf shook his head as he hopped on the stool and began washing the dishes.
"I see a loving person with both human and elf blood."
"So do I!" Harry seconded.
"And you are a better individual than I was." Lucien said, fading through the wall.
Harry charged out the door only to find that Lucien was nowhere to be found. He moped back to the room his father was in to find Lucien's ghost weeping quietly over his son, who was stirring slightly in his sleep. Instinctively, Harry wrapped his arms around Lucien's waist to console him, but his arms passed right through the entity.
"I want to make amends!" Lucien cried, regaining his semi-solid form and lowering his head to Severus's chest. "I've tried to apologize for all the suffering I've caused him. I tried to tell him on the very night I was buried and began my existence as a ghost."
"He didn't listen to you?"
"He fled." Lucien sighed. "He was so afraid of me that he would listen to nothing I had to say."
"Aww," said Harry, kneeling beside Lucien and resting his head on the ghost's shimmering white side. Lucien wrapped an arm around Harry and assumed a seated position on the floor beside Severus's bed. "I am so relieved that being a Death Eater for all these years has not debased your father as it had me."
"You saved father from full effects of the Animalia Potion." Harry said, remembering vividly the night shortly before Lucien's torture and murder. "I watched you destroying the vials of Animalia potion."
"I've failed! I could not reach that last rack to destroy it before The Dark Lord stopped me." grated Lucien, his face contorting into a mixture of wrath and failure.
"But you've saved him from being tortured for eight hours under the potion." Harry protested. "You were tortured that way weren't you?"
The pale ghost winced and nodded. "Both my body and brain were so damaged when the eight hours were concluded, that I no longer felt like the same man I was before. Physically, I was always in discomfort or pain thereafter. Mentally, I was far worse, and could no longer even produce a complete thought, unless it was for the brewing of a potion. I was always angry without reason, and lashed out at anyone unfortunate to cross me in the slightest. Everyone around me suffered, but Mervidith and Severus suffered the most."
"Oh grandfather..." Harry kissed Lucien on his cheek. "I really wish we could have met in life. I know so little about you, or any of my relatives for that matter. I don't know a whole lot about grandmother, except for a few glimpses I had of her when I was outside of time, I don't even know all that much about father. But I know the least of all about you... how you came to be a Death Eater, why you became a Death Eater, what your childhood was like, why you look so much like Lucius Malfoy...? I really don't know anything about you."
"You wouldn't want to know me."
"I do so!" Harry protested. "You're my grandfather! You're part of me even if we have different blood. Please? I won't tell anyone anything you tell me?"
"Are you sure?"
"Very sure Grandfather." Harry insisted. "You must be a ghost for a reason. And I don't think anyone should die without people being able to remember them properly. I think father only remembers bad things about you since he might have been too young to really know you before then. Please grandfather, you don't have to tell me too much. But...okay, I'll tell you what, you tell me about you, and I'll tell you everything about me. Please please please? I won't hate you for anything you tell me."
"Very well." Lucien nodded at last. He really did want to know more about his only grandchild, and sharing some of his own memories was not a very high price to pay. "Perhaps talking about some of these things will ease both our souls."
Harry stared at Lucien in a way that made him nervous.
"I could show you if you like? Although I can't imagine why a brave child like you, one who confronted the Dark Lord in a fistfight and survived, would want to know more about a foolish old ghost like me." Lucien remarked.
"You can show me?" Harry asked in wonder. "Please, I would like that. And you're not a foolish old ghost! If you were, how could you have known how to help father today?"
"Very well." Lucien nodded. Without rising from the floor, he pointed to a cabinet in the nearby labs, and levitated a stone bowl out of one of the highest shelves.
"You've kept a pensieve?"
"Many wizards do." replied Lucien. "I needed my pensieve especially. With my being a Death Eater, The Dark Lord would often pry into my mind for weaknesses to exploit. I felt that my own memories were all weaknesses, so I used the Pensieve most extensively. Nearly all my memories are contained in here."
"Are you sure you want to let me look at your personal memories? Penseives are really personal things, although I'll admit to looking into other people's penseives before." Harry asked, watching in awe as Lucien performed magic all without the use of a wand. Was it possible that Lucien was not a ghost like Nearly Headless Nick, who was a mere imprint left behind of a wizard that once lived. Was it because Lucien had not died properly when his spirit left his body, that he did not seem altogether like a proper ghost? Yes, perhaps it was not correct to think of Lucien as a ghost like Nearly Headless Nick, but more an actual spirit; a spirit like Harry had been when he had temporarily left his body while being so close to death. But what explained Lucien being both visible, and able to do magic? Could he somehow be composed of the magical energy which resided in Lucien's body while he lived?
"While pensieves are highly personal items, I find that do not mind sharing mine with you, my only grandson. When one is alive, they are often very protective of their memories. When you're dead, you regret many things. There was so much I wanted to share with Sevvie and Mervidith, but lacked the courage. But if you are willing, Grandparents often bore their Grandchildren with stories of the old times past, after all." Lucien swirled the silvery surface with his fingers, causing images to float to the top randomly. "In this case, I can not only tell you a story of the old days, I can show you as well."
Harry, who had never had the pleasure of a Grandparent's stories before, nestled his head into Lucien's side and watched the images rising from the Pensieve in fascination. "You could never bore me, Granddad. Never ever."
A pale, white-blond haired boy played with a black cat in the yard of a mansion far grander than both Snape Manors combined. Harry's stomach lurched, for he initially thought he were watching his despised rival Draco Malfoy. Upon closer observation, Harry realized that he was seeing a younger version of his own grandfather, the then Lucien Malfoy.
"I was born in 1941, during a time when the muggles were involved in a great war." Lucien narrated as the boy in the pensieve, who was dressed in fine wizard's robes, kicked off on his broom and joined several other wizard children in a game of Quidditch. Harry eagerly perused the children's faces, wondering if he might recognize some of the older wizards still living today. "Amongst my earliest memories, were the sounds of distant explosions from the war. Our family went on holiday throughout Europe, regardless of what the muggles were doing, and in that time, I saw bombs and those exploding kill sticks called guns." Harry watched a toddler Lucien Malfoy approach two uniformed men who were throwing hand grenades from behind a pile of what appeared to be sandbags and crude stone blocks in a grungy muggle alley. Seconds later, an elegant blonde woman dressed in fine robes, popped out of a brick wall in a dark corner of the alley. Harry concluded that she probably was Lucien's mother, because she ran over to the boy and quickly snatched him away from the carnage. "Although we were warned to stay away from the warlike muggles, I only became more and more fascinated by them as I grew older."
Time appeared to speed along from within the Pensieve, although exactly how much time passed, Harry could not ascertain. Lucien had apparently enjoyed a tranquil and luxurious childhood, probably not too unlike the childhood Draco Malfoy enjoyed. Lucien had all the wizard toys a child growing up in the 1940s and early 1950s could possibly want, and he never wanted for his favourite foods, for there were many house elves in the Malfoy Mansion who would prepare whatever he asked for no matter the time of day or night. He had little to no chores to carry out around the house, and Harry wondered how boys like Lucien or Draco learned to develop any sense of responsibility whatsoever. One thing that struck Harry, was how lonely Lucien's childhood appeared to be. Sure, he had many visits from his friends; but the rest of the time, young Lucien spent his days playing alone, reading and making potions. The elder Malfoys appeared to always have been busy with something or other, and spent little quality time with Lucien. Harry wondered if Draco had also been raised more by the Malfoy house elves than by Lucius or Narcissa.
"I entered Hogwarts in the September of 1952, and as you may have deduced, I was sorted into the Slytherin House." Harry could not get over how much young Lucien Malfoy resembled Draco Malfoy. Were it not for the boy's very long white blonde hair, they would look like the same person.
The present day Lucien's expression turned sad. "This was also the year I was cast out of the Malfoy clan. Disowned."
"But why were you disowned?" Harry asked.
As if in response, the pensieve's image of Lucien Snape at the welcoming feast with the other Slytherin first years morphed into a Wintry scene at Malfoy Manor.
"Are you sure your parents won't be angry?" A girl with dark skin and very curly hair asked as she followed Lucien up the walkway to Malfoy Manor.
"Not at all, LeShunya," the child Lucien replied, taking the girl's hand and leading her up the stairs.
The ghost Lucien elaborated. "LeShunya was a muggle born witch of African Ancestry. Although she had been sorted into Gryffindor house, I became friends with her shortly after meeting her in herbology class." Harry watched as the Malfoys appeared shocked upon meeting Lucien's new friend, but were accommodating, and quickly invited the dark skinned witch to join them at the table. "My parents later made their disapproval of our friendship known. Not only was LeShunya a Gryffindor, she was also muggleborn." The ghost Lucien watched his former self argue his case against Lucifer Malfoy, his father.
"But father!" the child Lucien protested. "Why can I not be friends with LeShunya? While she is muggle born, she knows more about magical creatures than some of the pureblooded children do."
"Lucien!" Lucifer Malfoy shouted. "She might be a witch, but both her parents are muggles. If you have children with her..."
"Have children? With a girl? Ewwww!" the young Lucien cringed, prompting Harry to giggle slightly to himself. Harry had felt the same way about girls when he was eleven.
Lucifer smacked his pale son across his cheek.
"Owwwwww!" Lucien sniffled. "Why did you do that?"
"I am being very serious, child." Lucifer grasped both of Lucien's shoulders and shook him roughly as he spoke. "We are not to consort with their kind! You may have no sexual desires thus far, but when you do, you are not to be fouling the Malfoy bloodline with halfblooded whelps. You'll be lucky if your child has magical powers as you do, but making a child with a muggleborn increases the likelihood that your child will be born with no magical abilities. We will not tolerate a SQUIB Malfoy heir!"
"Yes father..." Lucien said, looking somewhat dazed from his father's stout shaking.
"I continued my friendship with LeShunya in secret, as did John Potter, my other best friend." the ghost Lucien went on, as the image of Lucien, LeShunya and some one who vaguely resembled Harry perusing muggle books floated above the Pensieve's surface. "There were so many things we learned about the muggle world from her."
"Grandfather, sorry to interrupt." Harry said, motioning to John Potter, his biological grandfather, who was wearing green robes like Lucien. "Your friend, John Potter. He was a Slytherin? Like you?"
"He certainly was. He slept in the four-poster next to mine in the dorms as a matter of a fact." The Pensieve then showed the vista from the Astronomy tower. Lucien, LeShunya, John Potter and a few other first years were looking over the grounds, watching the sun as it set. Once the sun disappeared below the horizon, the other first years lost interest and headed back to their dorms. LeShunya and Lucien remained.
"How different are muggleborns really from wizard folk?" Lucien asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Wizard folk and Muggle folk have always lived apart." the boy Lucien continued. "Are you different somehow? Anatomically?"
"I'm not sure?" said LeShunya. "I've never seen any pictures showing the differences between wizards and muggles."
"Me neither." Lucien went on.
The ghost Lucien once more elaborated. "The 1950s were a very conservative era. Even our wizarding texts taught us little about our bodies. From what I understand, Muggle texts taught equally as little. All we did was a little harmless exploration of our differences. There was nothing sexual about it, but one of the Professors happened upon us then, and drew his own conclusions."
Harry jumped back at the next scene, which showed a very angry Lucifer Malfoy beating a terrified Lucien in one of the empty classrooms of Hogwarts. Evidently, the school had notified him of his son's 'transgressions.'
"But father!" Lucien shouted, wincing from another blow dealt him by his livid father. "We weren't doing anything subversive! I was just curious that is all!"
"Then why did you not 'explore' one of the pureblooded witches from your own house?" shouted Lucifer.
"I wasn't looking only because she was a girl! And all the girls in Slytherin are purebloods like us!" Lucien was sobbing from the pain of being lifted by a handful of his long white hair. "I was only wondering if muggles were anatomically just like us."
"THEY ARE!" Lucifer threw Lucien to the floor, produced a leather strap, and beat the child mercilessly. "Right down to the naughty bits! If you want to see for yourself, I'll take you along with me next holiday when we raid another muggle house. I'll strip both the man and the woman of the house to prove to you that we are anatomically the same."
Lucien lay sobbing on the stone floor, rubbing the stinging area of his head where his hair had been pulled, while attempting to shield his backside from more lashes. "Then why do we treat them like animals?! If they are like us, the same species, then why must we separate ourselves from them?"
The ghost Lucien sighed. "My father refused to believe that I had done nothing inappropriate with LeShunya. My arguing so strongly for muggleborns further convinced my father of my guilt. He told me I was no longer fit to be the Malfoy heir, for I had too high a tolerance for muggles and muggleborns and could jeopardize the purity of the bloodline."
Lucien leaned his ghostly form against the wall behind him. "Father took me back to Malfoy Manor for one last time. I was disowned that very night. Although I was innocent, and had no desires of that sort yet, father believed I had committed a sexual act with LeShunya."
Harry gasped at the sight of Lucifer roughly cutting off young Lucien's long hair, while the elegant mother of Lucien wept helplessly. She obviously did not agree with her husband's decision to cast out their only child. "You have shamed this family, Lucien! You could have experimented with any girl from your own house, but you took it upon yourself to select a muggleborn."
"But father! I didn't do THAT! I'm still pure! I've done nothing sexual. Have a mediwizard examine me, or use Veritaserum, you'll see that I am being truthful." Lucien whimpered as his long white hair, a badge of his being a part of the Malfoy family fell to the floor in clumps. "I swear it!"
But Lucifer Malfoy was all but deaf to his son's entreaties, and continued to harshly chop off his son's hair with a sharp dagger. When he was done, Lucien looked very much like Draco would without his haughty sneer. "One more thing," Lucifer handed Lucien a phial. Mrs. Malfoy began sobbing uncontrollably. "Drink this."
"What is it father?"
"As you will no longer be a part of this family, we cannot allow you the potential to produce bastard children." Lucifer replied. "It is an Antispermatogenesis potion. You'll still mature normally, and you'll look and function as a normal wizard when you reach adulthood. But you will be infertile."
"I can never have children of my own?"
"Never! Now drink the potion!" Lucifer commanded, pointing a wand threateningly at Lucien.
"So you could not father any children, even if you wanted to?" Harry asked.
"No," the ghost Lucien replied. "That is partially why I later agreed to raise Severus as my own." The Pensieve showed a very ramshackle dwelling which looked not too unlike the burrow. "I was sent to live with an Aunt for the rest of my formative years. I did not mind the arrangement much, for my Aunt was kind; and your grandmother's family, the Rogues, were our neighbours. Although Mervidith was a few years my junior, she was mature for her age, and was a wonderful companion. And a loyal friend." The image showed Mervidith and Lucien gathering herbs in a field. "I had never had many close companions whilst I was growing up, so having a friend so close by, was welcome indeed."
Harry smiled at the sight of Mervidith putting wildflowers in Lucien's hair as he dozed beneath a shady tree. Although his hair had been cropped very short when he was disowned, his hair now reached his shoulders, indicating to Harry that many months must have passed. Harry began laughing fully when young Lucien woke up to find his white hair looking like a floral table centerpiece.
"MERVIDITH!" Lucien shouted in mock anger.
"Goodbye, Lucien!" Mervidith taunted, breaking into a run. Her long, raven red, hair flew behind her as she sped away from Lucien. Harry was surprised at how fast the girl, who would one day be his grandmother, could sprint. She could easily qualify for any school track team, and leave their more seasoned runners trailing in the dust left by her shoes. Lucien could not run nearly as fast. Harry found it comical to watch the boy Lucien chasing after Mervidith, leaving a trail of flowers behind him as they fell out of his hair.
"One day in the following Summer," the ghost Lucien said as the scene in the Pensieve changed to show the face of the elegant Malfoy matriarch, "my Mother paid me an unexpected visit."
"Mother?" young Lucien asked while still enfolded in his mother's arms. "What brings you hither?"
"Oh Lucien!" Lucinda Malfoy sobbed, not willing to release her son. "I miss you so much!"
"I know that." Lucinda wept and motioned to the dilapidated house, which was now Lucien's residence. "I cannot bear the thought of you living in...this squalidness."
"Please, do not cry for me, mother." Lucien hugged the blonde woman once more. "I am very content here. I may no longer have wealth, and I have had to get used to manual labour, but otherwise, I am quite happy."
"Oh...you need not say such things to make me feel better." Lucinda mewled.
Harry realized that the woman simply could not envision that life without wealth and leisure could still be sweet. "I wanted to give you these before you left, but your father had cut your hair too short..." The woman pulled a velvet bag out of her purse. "Your father forbade me from giving you money, but he did not tell me that I could not give you a means of retaining your wealth."
"Mother, really there is no need..."
"Please, take them." Lucinda withdrew a large ruby from the bag and transfigured it into a hair bead which she strung onto Lucien's hair. She did the same with the diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, charmed amethysts, and other precious stones. In all, Harry concluded Lucien must have had nearly a million galleons worth of precious stones in his white hair.
"Mother, I do not wish to sound ungrateful, but I cannot be about with all these precious stones in my hair. I will be a target for..."
Lucinda drew her wand and the stones changed to resemble beads made of wood and glass. "When you need money, you may sell a stone or two. If you prefer, you do not even need to wear them all the time. Just store them in a secure place. But please accept these, my son, I cannot bear the thought of you being left destitute."
"Arguing with my mother was a fruitless exercise," the ghost Lucien waved his hand over the side of his head, and five transfigured gems appeared, strung on his hair. Harry noticed that there was one of each type of stone. "So I accepted the gift. However, that was not the only reason my mother had come visiting."
"I need your help, Lucien..." Lucinda Malfoy's image floated out of the Pensieve, her voice echoing softly in the room.
"Anything, what is it that you need?" The boy Lucien asked.
"Your father, he said that if I don't bear him another heir," Lucinda paled even more than she already was, "he'll kill me!"
"WHAT?"
"He's been horrible trying to force me to conceive." Lucinda continued. "He's tried all the available potions, and every month, no heir."
"But what can I do?" young Lucien asked.
"I have consulted a seer, and he said that you're destined to be one of the greatest potion masters in the UK. You may not have developed a potion that will help a woman conceive yet, but..." Lucinda pulled what appeared to be an enchanted calendar from inside her robes, "...you will in the future."
"I don't understand."
"Lucien, you do know what this is do you not?"
"A time altering device of some sort?" Lucien speculated.
"Exactly." Lucinda nodded. "I know this is much to ask of you, but I desperately need your help. Use the Leapyear to travel to the future, find your future self and explain the situation. Ask him for the best fertility potions he has developed."
"And what if my future self hasn't developed a suitable treatment?"
"Then use the Leapyear to go even further ahead in time," Lucinda explained. "Perhaps even to a time that your future self is retired, I have faith in you. You will have developed a treatment I could use."
"And what if I died before I developed such a treatmen..." The rest of Lucien's response was halted by a sharp slap.
"I'll not hear of you dying!" Lucinda said firmly. "No mother wants to think of their offspring dying prematurely! I love you Lucien! I'll always be your mother. Even if we are no longer recognized as mother and son legally. You'll always be my son."
"Very well mother." Lucien acquiesced. "Now show me how to use the Leapyear."
Lucien looked down at Harry, and saw him looking not at the Pensieve, but directly into Lucien's eyes. "And then what happened, Granddad?"
"I selected a year well into the new millennium, and was puzzled that I could not find myself at all in that time. I did not know then that I would have died in 1979, after all." said Lucien. "Confused, I used a function on the Leapyear that would not only allow me to jump to another time, but to another time on a different plane altogether. And eventually I did find an incarnation of myself."
Harry gaped at the sight in the pensieve. Young Lucien was standing opposite an elderly and dour looking Lucien...who was dressed in muggle laboratory gear. "My alternate self knew why I had come and introduced me to the study of eugenics and human cloning." The ghost Lucien smiled deviously. "So instead of bringing a potion which would help my mother conceive ANOTHER child, my alternate self combined muggle science with the magic he still possessed, and concocted a potion which would cause my mother to become pregnant with an exact copy of me. The only alteration to the copy we've made was in his colouration. My future self altered the clone's genetic code so that his hair would be more a golden blonde similar to my mother's, and his eyes would greyer, like my father's. My parents would have become suspicious if their new baby looked exactly like me, after all."
"So Lucius Malfoy is...?" Harry inferred.
"Yes, he is my clone!" Lucien grinned. "He is genetically identical to me save for slight changes to his colouration. So, despite their casting me out, my blood still runs true in the Malfoy clan. I know Lucius was raised from the very beginning to harbour more hatred toward the muggles and muggleborns, then I ever was. But he should be able to tell right from wrong. If Lucius won't yearn for change, then any child he engenders surely will, if only in passing though..." Lucien paused. "Harry, does Lucius have any offspring?"
"He's got a son." Harry replied, suppressing any ill feelings as best he could toward his arch rival Draco. Draco, did after all have Lucien Malfoy's blood. "The boy is in my year, his name is Draco Malfoy. Father is his godfather in fact."
"Draco..." Lucien smiled smugly, looking so much like Draco at that moment that Harry flinched. "I would so love to see him. He is the closest thing to a biological son that I'll ever have. Genetically, he is my son."
"In a few hours, when I can use my magic again," Harry offered, realizing that his growing love for his Grandfather was far greater than his enmity for Draco Malfoy. "I could put one of my memories in the Pensieve so that you can see what Draco looks like if you want?"
"It would please me greatly." Lucien smiled.
Harry was thankful that he had visited Draco as Harry Snape and not Harry Potter. Otherwise, he would have no memories where Draco wasn't sneering, making snide remarks, drawling condescendingly or outright harassing him.
Harry did not want grandfather to find out just how dreadful the relationship between his biological son and grandson really was.
"Even though Severus and I share no blood," Lucien waved his hand over the surface of the Pensieve once more, "he is as much my son, as you are his."
End Chapter Thirty-Four
