Remembrance and Renewal by Nigel Tatsuya and Avatar
Arkmage
Chapter Thirty-Five: We Are Snapes
"Even though Severus and I share no blood," Lucien waved a hand over the crystalline surface of the Pensieve once more, "he is as much my son, as you are his."
Lucien gently brushed a few strands of his son's obsidian hair aside and felt his forehead.
"Is he all right? Does he still have a fever?" Harry took one of Severus's hands in his own, and felt the answer for himself at roughly the same time that Lucien answered.
"No, Harry. I daresay his temperature is nearly back to normal." The translucent entity exhaled a ghostly breath of relief, then sank to the floor once more. "Did I not tell you that your father was an obstinate man?"
"Uh huh. And you were right! Even though there isn't supposed to be a cure for hemo-raging fever, Father fought it with only a little help from us." Harry found new reasons to feel proud of his father almost every day. "He's not even bleeding as much anymore."
"He has the figurative upper hand at the moment." Lucien floated to a seated position before the pensieve on the floor.
"Isn't our talking going to disturb him though, Granddad?"
"Not likely. The Immunoenhancer potion we've brewed him, also contains a powerful sleep inducer." Lucien replied. "Usually when we treat serious illnesses, it is a common practice to sedate the patient so they expend no unnecessary energy."
Harry stood once more and did the 'silly dance' in front of Severus. At receiving no response, he resumed his place at his grandfather's side.
(Deleted scene A- see our new deleted scene section to read it)
"So what happened next grandfather?"
"The rest of this story is a lengthy one." said Lucien. "It is late now, Harry. I will tell you anything else you wish to know in the morning, if you so desire. You ought to rest now."
Lucien fully expected to hear words of protest from the young boy, but Harry only leaned into him more heavily.
"Okay, granddad. That is one of the bad things about being a little kid actually." Harry yawned. "I get tired after only a few hours. I've been forcing myself to stay awake for a while now." Harry's green eyes widened fully. "Oh I wonder if I can use my magic again?"
"Anxious to resume being a teenager?"
Memories of a life that seemed not unlike a fading nightmare, fell on Harry in torrents. The expectations, the duties, the stress, the heartbreak, the loneliness, accompanied by the physical changes of adolescence all competed for precedence in his mind. "I-I think I'll wait until father is well again, I might give him a fright if he wakes up and sees me as a teenager."
Lucien nodded.
"I'll be back, granddad. I have to go back to Snape Manor Two to get my pajamas and my wand."
"But the wards."
"That will be the test," Harry called back as he ran. "If I can make it safely through the wards and back, that will mean I can use my magics again."
"And if your body is not yet cleared of the potion?"
"I think I'll only be a little sore." Harry decided to go before self-doubt set in. "It should be almost gone now, shouldn't it?"
Lucien faded out and reappeared near the main entrance, looking quite apprehensive. It was a relief when Harry exited the mansion, turned around and waved, indicating that he was fine.
Harry returned shortly thereafter, holding a light, turquoise union suit pyjama set with tiny white owls printed on the fabric. In his other hand, he held what appeared to be muggle toiletries. "Er...granddad? I uh haven't had a bath today..."
"The baths still function here in Snape Manor One." Lucien motioned to the nearest one. "You may use it..."
Harry held up his bandaged hand. "Can you help me grandfather? Please? I don't know how to wash myself with only one hand, so I'll probably have to use both hands, but the one with the glass cuts will hurt."
Lucien bathed Harry with a proficiency which indicated he had given quite a few baths before. Not even the slightest measure of soap or shampoo dripped into Harry's eyes.
Harry thought it very strange that Lucien did not need to roll up his sleeves for the task. Perhaps ghosts cannot roll up their sleeves at all? Harry finally inquired about it as Lucien gently scrubbed his back.
"It is partially because I am a spirit, but also because I am an illusion." Lucien explained. "The magic I had in my body whilst I was living, is now bonded to my soul. Without that bonding, I'd be like most other spirits; unable to interact with the living, invisible, without form, unable to affect things in the immediate environment. I use my magical core to create form, and to project this image of how I used to appear."
"You can look differently than you do now?" Harry asked.
"Yes." The ghost turned into an amorphous mass, then back again. "I use this form, because it is the one I am most accustomed to. It is familiar. And since I looked like this when I died, my spirit remembers this form well. Although, something as simple as rolling up my sleeves can be difficult." Lucien pulled up his sleeve, and Harry could see right away that Lucien struggled to compensate for the change in his appearance. First he appeared to have nothing at all under his sleeve; then a spectral arm appeared, but it flickered as though it were a holographic projection. Lucien concentrated further, and finally a ghostly white arm took shape. "You see Harry, enjoy rolling up your sleeves in life, because it is a somewhat difficult feat to accomplish in death."
"Oops!" Harry exclaimed when he accidentally dropped one of the larger wooden bath toys in the water, thereby splashing his grandsire's clothes. "Sorry, granddad!"
Oddly, Lucien's clothes still appeared perfectly dry. "It's quite all right, Harry. Severus used to soak me quite thoroughly when he was a little boy..." Lucien began shivering at his memories again "...those times I didn't attempt to drown him, that is..." Harry knew Lucien had not only tried to drown Severus before, but had also burned him with hot bath water. Harry found it difficult to believe the kind ghost giving him a bath now, and the cruel man who had terrorized his father during his childhood was one in the same.
While Harry was still wrapped only in a towel, Lucien took Harry's wounded hand in his own. "Now that you can tolerate magic again, would you like me to heal those glass cuts, or do you just want me to dress them?"
"Heal me? Please?"
"Potion or spell?"
"I can't decide?" Harry said.
"Then let it be both." Lucien summoned a jar containing a purple-tinged ointment, which he gently rubbed into Harry's cuts. He then waved a hand over Harry's palm and muttered an incantation. The magic which flowed from Lucien's hand seemed to merge with the purple ointment, causing Harry's wounds to glow momentarily. The sensation was very pleasurable. When the glowing faded, so did the wounds.
"You'll have to teach me that one, Grandfather." Harry marvelled at his now blemish free hand.
Because Harry did not want to sleep alone, Lucien moved the still unconscious Severus into one of the larger bedrooms which contained two four poster beds within. He carefully washed the drying blood from Severus's body in the small adjoining bath, frowning at just how emaciated his son appeared. Severus had always been thin before, but his recent bout with haemorrhagic fever had only made matters worse.
Although the linens were already immaculate, Rastus placed a cleaner, more absorbent set of linens on the beds before Lucien placed Severus on one of them. Severus was no longer bleeding as much as before, so Lucien retrieved one of the nightshirts he had worn while he was still living and pulled it onto his son. The nightshirt was quite large on Severus's lithe frame, for Lucien had been a taller, and more broad-shouldered man, while he lived. Even as a ghost, he was still roughly half a head taller than his son.
Harry walked into the bedroom, carrying Lucien's pensieve.
"The real reason I went to get my wand..." Harry pulled a silvery strand from his own head and placed it into the pensieve. "Here is Draco Malfoy, granddad."
"Thank you, Harry." Lucien floated the Pensieve over to a desk in the corner of the room and 'sat' on the chair. "Now rest, dear child. There will be so much more to talk about in the morning."
Harry nestled his head on the sueded cotton covered down pillow, still watching his grandfather seated at the desk. Over and over, images of a pale, white-blond haired boy sipping from a muggle canister, tousling Harry's hair, Harry retaliating playfully and the two boys just eating muggle sweets played above the stone bowl. Because Lucien required no sleep, Harry knew his grandfather would watch the memory of Draco for the better part of the night.
Just before Harry sank into a deep sleep, his eyes sprang open once more. Because Lucius is Lucien's clone and therefore has identical genes, that would make Draco as much Lucien's biological son as he was Lucius's...and because Lucien was Harry's adopted grandfather that meant... Draco was technically HARRY's UNCLE?!?!?!
Harry would never be sure if he fell asleep then, or passed out from shock.
Ron sat next to the little girl, who lay upon the very bed which he had slept in whilst he was toddler. With so many children, the Weasleys had had to reuse many of the meagre items in their house. This very bed, equipped with magical wards to keep very young children from falling out of it, had been used by roughly all the Weasley children at one time or another in the past.
Only Ginny had not had to share this bed, for she had been the first girl born in seven generations to a seventh son, and was fawned over by the friends and relatives of the Weasley family. She had been given better things that Ron, or any of her brothers had ever received, Ron even considered her to be indulged at times, but dutifully kept his envy in check, for no one would tolerate anything against Ginny.
Samsonite did not seem to mind the condition of the seventh-handed bed a bit.
Ron moved his face onto the child's belly and nuzzled it relentlessly. The girl squirmed and tried to escape from Ron, but was soon giggling uncontrollably.
"Leave off, Ron!" the red-headed toddler laughed. "I'll tell Uncle Afa on you!"
"His name is Arthur." Ginny Weasley said as she appeared in the doorway. "Come on, Ron leave her alone. We have to let her sleep. She's just a baby, after all."
"Whoah! You'd better not hang around with Hermione any more, Ginny! You're starting to sound as bossy as her!" Ron said with mock chagrin on his face. "But I guess you're right." Ron put one of his old Chudley Cannons plush dolls into the foundling's arms. Having had so little while he was growing up, Ron rarely shared any of his possessions willingly. He had concluded however, that little Samsonite would put the plush toy to better use than he would. "Good night, Sam." Ron kissed the little child on the head.
"Why on Earth do you call her 'Sam?'" Ginny inquired as she and Ron headed up the stairs together.
"I think it's her name?" Ron shrugged. "The name 'Samsonite' was written all over her suitcases and stuff."
Just before Ginny closed the door to her room, she saw Arthur and Molly scuttling back into the little foundling's room for the third time that evening. She rolled her eyes in a very Hermione-esque fashion before shutting the door. Although it was a refreshing change to no longer be the youngest child in the Weasley household, or to bear the title of the only girl in seven generations to be born to a seventh son, Ginny had not expected to utterly fade into the background with the arrival of the new toddler.
She paused and looked up in the direction of Ron's high bedroom and immediately began to rethink her budding jealousy. Was this how it had been for Ron when Ginny was born? Granted, he was only the youngest child for less than a year and may not have remembered being such...but still...
The older couple approached Samsonite as quietly as they could, yet could not help waking her. The little girl had been moved into the room next to Molly and Arthur's, which had served as the nursery for all seven of their natural children in its time. Because they thought the room would go unused after Ginny aged out of it, Molly and Arthur converted it into a storage room for items they did not need every day. Because the room was so small, and was made even smaller by the crates storing unused items, Arthur accidentally upset one of them with his elbow. The little girl opened her brownish-green eyes in surprise.
"Sorry!" Arthur hastily righted the crate.
"Just checking up on you, dear." Molly Weasley crooned to the young girl.
Samsonite grinned, in turn, at both of them.
"Sleep well, Samsonite!" Arthur said, kissing the girl on the forehead. "If you need us, you know where our bed chambers are."
The little redheaded girl barely responded. Between Fred, George, Percy, Ron, and Mr and Mrs Weasley, their attentions over the course of the day, were enough to tire her out thoroughly. Even Ginny's infrequent visits added to it.
Once back in the hallway, Molly turned to Arthur. "Do you suppose she has the ability to use magic? Even though she's from the muggle world and all?"
"Why would you think that?"
"She's survived the explosions at the train station at Hogsteadder." Molly leaned closer to Arthur. "From what I understand, not many of the others did. Not even the adults."
Arthur yawned and lead his wife into their bedchambers, "We can think on this more later, I'm tired, Molly dear."
Draco Malfoy had been navigating the streets of London for a considerable portion of the day. He did not know how to ride those muggle vehicles, which resembled the knight bus with one of its levels sheered off, as the vehicles did not come to proper stops to allow a partly crippled boy like him on. And he had no idea how to ask directions of the people on the street, as many did not know about barriers into the magical world, and those he did whisper it to, thought him insane.
He had rarely traveled anywhere alone. Either Lucius or Narcissa had always ventured into town with him. Draco only wished he had payed more attention.
He had better luck with cars, save for the fact that three had almost run him over whilst he attempted to get them to stop for him. Draco still managed to hitch a ride with a few muggle drivers, but since he did not know how to describe the way from London to Malfoy Manor,they just too Draco to their own destinations and let him off then. What little directions he managed to give were so poor, that the muggles just took him around the city in circles before letting him off again in exasperation.
One driver seemed to enjoy talking to Draco about something called the stock market. The topic left Draco very unnerved, since he thought cruel and unusual punishments, like the stocks and the ducking stool, were dispensed with in both the magical and muggle worlds quite some time ago. By the time the driver let him off, Draco was convinced that Nikkei, Wall Street and Dow Jones were the names of violent muggle inquisitors, and made a mental note to avoid them at all costs.
Still another muggle driver, a surly man with what resembled Death Eater brands on his broad shoulders, had a strange custom of groping Draco as he drove. Not wanting to chance angering the man, Draco asked to be let out of the car as politely as he could. But the man would not stop. When the man put his hand in a place Draco absolutely did not want handled, at least not by the man, Draco involuntarily blasted him out of the car.
"Molestererer!" Draco shouted at him, remembering the term he had heard from Harry Snape.
Moments later, Draco was really panicking, for no one had showed him how to operate a muggle vehicle before, and he hadn't been paying a whole lot of attention to the muggle drivers. Worst of all, he had no idea how to stop. He tried fiddling with the buttons and levers in the car, as well as the pedals on the floor. One of the buttons in the car, caused very loud music to start playing, while another switch made the car so hot that Draco concluded it was a means of killing thieves who tried to steal the car. One of the foot pedals made the car go so fast, that pedestrians on the pavement had to scurry out of the way to avoid being hit. Draco figured that the other pedal would probably make the car run slower, and since he was going very fast, he stomped the pedal all the way to the floor. Draco ended up kissing the steering wheel when he slammed into it.
Draco soon became aware of the wailing tones of sirens coming from somewhere behind him. In the rear view mirror, he saw two patrol cars encroaching. As much as he wanted to slow down to better admire the flashing lights, and the exciting sound of the siren, he knew from what he had learned from dramas on the telly that these were muggle police. And he panicked. Why were they pursuing him? He hadn't committed a crime had he?
A chase, which could easily put a medium-budget police movie to shame, ensued. Although Draco did not know exactly how to operate muggle vehicles, he was a very determined youth, and learned real fast... at least how to manipulate the steering wheel to avoid crashing into things. He sped in a direction he thought would lead him back to Malfoy Manor. He had never tried getting there via Muggle transportation routes, but what better time than now to attempt it?
Draco was driving so fast, he was passing everyone on the road except for three buses of school children, for their drivers were going even faster than he was... if that were possible. To his dismay, the bobbies were keeping up with him and a police chopper joined the fray overhead.
Soon, many kilometres out of London, Draco found himself in familiar territory. Even at high velocity, Draco recognized the hillside and a centuries old Yew tree on the roadside ahead. He was quickly approaching the vicinity of Malfoy Manor.
"Pull over!" The police car behind him instructed over a device that amplified the officer's voices.
"I don't want to!" Draco drawled back, wishing there were a similar device in his vehicle.
Just when the chase was reaching a crescendo, Draco stomped on the brakes and skidded to just where the entrance gates to the Malfoy Estate would be found. As he hastily alighted, Draco's hospital slipper caught on the accelerator and lodged between the autoshift panel and the gas pedal, causing the car to move forward rapidly again.
One of the squad cars continued to give chase to the now driverless car, while the other pulled to a stop in front of Draco. The pale youth had never fallen from a car before, but he was far more afraid of being captured by the muggle law enforcers. If Azkaban was bad, how much worse must muggle prison be? Without dementors, muggles must surely employ executioners or something?
"Put your hands up!" A heavyset officer, who pointed a gun in Draco's direction, ordered. Draco obeyed, and held his hands high even as he raced through the magical barrier. He did not stop running until he was clear across the lawn of the Malfoy Estate, and on the steps of the grand manor itself. Exhausted, and sore both from falling from the car and from his not fully healed injuries, Draco turned back toward the lonely road fronting the Malfoy's property.
The wards around Malfoy Manor only allowed its occupants to see out. The confused officers outside the wards, saw nothing but a vast, empty pastureland. To them, Draco had simply vanished.
Draco sat on the front steps and sneered as one of the officers walked into the wards, then abruptly jumped back, looking as though he were deathly afraid of something. Anyone who attempted to cross the Malfoy's wards uninvited, saw horrifying images.
"What's wrong?" The other cop asked.
The officer, who had seen an image of his wife fighting with a brick house wife on the Jerry Springer show, was too shaken to answer.
The other cop took a few steps closer to the barrier and saw himself receiving an atomic wedgie. "Let's get out of here, something's not right about this place!"
High overhead, the chopper had captured the whole incident on videotape. It wasn't every day that Goth boy wannabes vanished into thin air.
Draco hobbled into Malfoy Manor once the muggle law enforcers were gone. He had never felt happier to be on the tiled vestibule of his home, than he was at the moment. As weak as he was, he had no choice but to revere those precious tiles, and he pitched forward onto the floor. He had hoped to collapse on his own bed, but Draco found that he had neither the energy nor the will to do so. He just lay there, alone...
Draco wondered if the car, which had his slipper lodged upon the accelerator, was still running...or if it had crashed into anything. If the runaway car did crash into something, Draco hoped it was Potter's skinny bum. Better yet, he hoped it crashed into Potter's bum AND then into Lord Voldemort's bum as well. It would serve the m both right.
"Young Master Draco!" one of the senior house elves called to the fallen boy. "Where has Master Draco been? And what has happened to Master Draco's hair?"
"It's black." Was all Draco muttered as more elves arrived in the vestibule to render aid.
"So what happened next, grandfather?" Harry asked, the next morning after breakfast. This time, Harry sat beside his still unconscious father as Lucien floated before them with the pensieve held aloft just above his spectral hands. "Will you explain more to me about how James and father are related? I'm not sure I truly understand yet..."
"I will try to explain the best that I am able. Be warned, Harry, some of this will be painful to watch. Not even I have been able to watch some of these memories in their entirety...but I will watch them with you so that you may ask your questions... "
Harry saw that the young Lucien Malfoy, who rose out of the pensieve, was now a young adult. He was relatively tall and still wore his white hair long, despite the pomade-slicked, shorter haircuts in fashion among young men of both the magical and the muggle world in the late 1950s. Lucien was dressed in University robes and carried a stack of tomes so large, it rivalled anything Harry had seen in Hermione's rucksack during their third year at Hogwarts.
"Malfoy!" came a voice somewhere beyond the field of vision allotted by the pensieve. "Malfoy!"
"Potter!" Lucien turned to face the young man who was sprinting from one of the other buildings nearby.
"How is married life?"
"Wonderful!" John Potter replied, stowing a few parchments in his own rucksack. Before securing it, he took out a comb and ran it through his heavily greased hair. "Would you like to come and stay with us over the Spring Holidays?"
"Really, Potter I thank you for the offer, but would your wife take favourably to an old school mate staying at your home? You've only been married a few months, after all. Don't you and your wife still need..." Lucien paused to clear his throat. "... time alone together?"
John Potter went red in the face and grinned nervously. He played with one of the zippers on his muggle-style leather jacket. "Oh we get plenty enough time as it is. I dare say I'm in need of a break from the...uh... routine. Mrs. Potter likes it quite often."
"You? John Potter having trouble keeping up? I would have thought you'd need more than one wife to satisfy your insatiable needs," said Lucien. "Very well then, I shall visit on my days off during the break, I still have my duties in the labs, after all."
"You mean you still have to work? Even during break?" John Potter whinged.
"I do not mind. Aside from my needing to earn a living now, I find my duties quite fulfilling."
"I went back to my Aunt's house frequently during the break and found that Mervidith, who was still a Hogwarts student at the time had also come home for the short recess rather than opting to stay at Hogwarts." Lucien leaned close to the image of Mervidith, who was now a young woman as he went on.
"We talked over tea about our lives in general. Our friends. Our futures. It surprised me little that Mervidith had become friends with students from all four houses, both magical and muggleborn alike."
"Grandmother was a really nice person wasn't she?" Harry asked, his eyes tearing up at seeing his beloved grandmother and being unable to have any further contact with her.
"Very much so." Lucien responded. "Perhaps nice even to a fault. She seemed to never fully understand that some people in the world harboured ill will towards others. She did not always seem to have a clear understanding of danger. I was very wary when she told me that she would be attending a sleepover at a muggleborn friend's house one night during the recess."
Lucien went silent for a while to listen to the little argument that took place in the pensieve. Harry watched his grandmother tell Lucien that he was worried over nothing, and that it was just a harmless sleepover in a reputable muggle neighbourhood.
"I was worried just the same, and ventured over to her friend's house that night..."
In the pensieve, Lucien stole onto the property and made his way over to the modest sized house where Mervidith would be spending the night with her muggleborn friends. Not daring to use any magic on that quiet street, Lucien proceeded, using only stealth under the cover of darkness. He peered through the house's windows at random until he found the second story window to the girl's bedroom where Mervidith and her friends were. Harry marvelled at just how agile young adult Lucien was. Using the rain gutter, Lucien scaled the house and hung from the windowpanes as he looked in.
Lucien only saw what anyone would expect to see at a typical girl's slumber party in 1959. The girls were all dressed in night gowns with strange furry snake-like things around their necks. The girls were either barefoot, or else they wore what looked like small, furry animals on their feet. Lucien wondered if muggles were so morbid as to insert their feet into the backs of slaughtered animals, before realizing the creatures were artificial.
What Lucien could not understand, was why the girls all had their beautiful hair wrapped around metallic cylindrical objects. Even stranger still, two of the girls had what appeared to be caldron residue painted on their faces. Perhaps muggles had a strange sense of aesthetic beauty. Either that, or because muggles were so violent, they lived in fear of ruffians invading their homes; and Lucien concluded that the girls with the painted faces were meant to scare any intruders away. If one of the girls with the painted faces were to jump in front of Lucien, he would be startled as well.
Mervidith and one of her friends were seated on a bed, sipping cocoa and painting their fingernails. Another girl was dancing in front of a muggle music maker machine which played songs from a black disc like object. Two other girls were giggling in the corner of the large room reading something. The younger Lucien's eyes went wide in surprise. The girls appeared to be reading a magazine with motionless, though obscene pictures of men flexing their muscles whilst wearing only their underwear. And very tight underwear at that! Lucien stared aghast at the sight of the mugglemen's underwear...it showed the shapes of their...of their...
Lucien's hand slipped off the windowsill, causing him to fall into the bushes beneath. He quickly got up; and finding nowhere suitable to hide without apparating, crawled into the family's doghouse... it was most unfortunate that the dog was still in the house. Seconds later, some one Harry assumed to be the muggleborn girl's father came storming into the yard to see what the noise was about. Lucien wrestled the dog down, and held its snout closed until the man shrugged and went back into the house. After arguing unsuccessfully with the dog in an effort to stop it from yammering at him for invading its space, Lucien sprinted all the way back to his Aunt's house.
"I was relieved that my fears were evidently unfounded." said Lucien. "I returned to the University and brewed some potions my supervisor had requested."
The image of the muggle house floated above the Pensieve again. "Before I retired for the night, I decided to check on your grandmother once more. I don't know why I felt the need to do so, but I am grateful I did."
"Was that the night..?" Harry could not finish.
Lucien stared at the pensieve for a while before answering. "One of the reasons I feared for Mervidith's safety, was because of attacks on muggles by seditious wizard gangs. The Death Eaters were not fully organized at the time, but there were many gangs of pureblooded wizards who attacked muggles and wizards who fraternized with them, for sport..."
Flashes of light could be seen from within the house. Unsure if he were merely seeing a new form of incandescent lighting or something more menacing, Lucien crept up to one of the lower windows of the house and peered in.
"Mervvie!" Lucien cried, and charged into the nearest door. The dead bodies of Mervidith's friends were strewn about the bedroom. Mervidith's muggleborn witch friend, lay motionless in the hall. Her cornflower-blue eyes were wide with fear; and the wand still in her cyanotic hands, looked to he held at the ready... She hadn't had the chance to fire off a single spell. The woman of the house lay on the stairs, a trickle of blood running from her light brown haired head.
The man of the house had faired no better, and lay slumped against the wall, looking as though his neck had been snapped.
Lucien then heard a series of soft cries coming from the parlour. Hoping to find that Mervidith had at least survived the carnage, he charged through the doors.
"This is what witches like you get for associating with the filthy muggles!" One of the wizards restraining the figure on the floor spat. "I believe I shall take another turn next!"
"No!" Mervidith shrieked, her voice hoarse both from exhaustion and from screaming. She struggled unusually feebly against the men holding her down, while another callously pleasured himself.
"To think we were prepared to defile ourselves with those filthy, disease laden muggle girls." another wizard said, grasping Mervidith's face and forcing her to look at him. "It was ever a surprise to find a pureblooded girl amongst them. And a most beguiling girl at that." The wizard turned to the others and smiled scornfully. "A little pleasure reward for our efforts, eh?"
"Who would have guessed!" a wizard caressing one of her thighs sneered. "A young witch from the Rogue clan! Mervidith Rogue! A double prize."
"Please." Mervidith groaned as the wizard pleasuring himself quickened his pace as he neared release. "No more...no more!"
"Leave her be!" Lucien thundered, picking up a baseball bat from a nearby display case and smashing the skull of one of the wizard men. A second drew his wand, but Lucien brought the bat firmly into the man's hands, breaking the wand and a few of his fingers.
The other wizards, seeing just how bloodthirsty Lucien appeared to be, fled as though Beelzebub himself were after them. Lucien managed to smash the shoulder blade of another wizard as he fled. The unruly haired man who had last assaulted Mervidith, could not flee as quickly, for he was attempting to hitch up his trousers beneath his robes as he ran. Lucien took full advantage of the situation and tackled him, making sure to slam the wizard into the floor, using the maximum amount of unnecessary brutality.
"POTTER?!" Lucien screamed, half in disbelief, half in rage when he saw who it was.
"What of it?"
"How could you?" Lucien grabbed the boy's unruly hair and slammed his head against the hardwood floor repeatedly. "You of all people! You have a wife! YOU HAVE A WIFE!! You could have had any of the girls at Hogwarts! You could have had any girl in the University, they would take their pleasure with you willingly! Yet you take Mervidith Rogue by force?! How could you have so demoralized yourself?"
Potter never answered Lucien. He had died of his own head injuries long before Lucien had finally stopped ramming his head against the floor.
Lucien threw Potter down in disgust, stomped on his abdomen twice, and dealt him a bone crushing kick before returning to Mervidith. She had not moved from the position the assailants had left her. She was far too weak. Lucien removed his outer robes and covered the violated girl.
"Lucien... Thanks." Mervidith could barely look her longtime friend in the eye.
"Mervvie, we need to take you to a hospital." said Lucien.
"No!" the dark haired girl protested, her face contorted in pain. "I don't want anyone to know about this."
"Then allow me, at the very least, to assist you..." As gently as he could, Lucien attempted to help Mervidith up.
"Uaaagh!" she exclaimed, fending off Lucien's hands. "It hurts."
"You're injured." Lucien began searching his pockets for a healing potion. "Here, it isn't a very powerful potion, but it will help with the pain." He raised Mervidith's head slightly and poured the potion into her mouth.
"Thank you." She said, still unable to meet his eyes. "I have no strength...feel so weak. I tried to fight...I tried...but I still could not save the muggles...I'm supposedly a good dueler...but not when it matters...I couldn't even fight, or disarm more than three of them..."
"There were too many of them from the appearance of it. I'll not hear you berating yourself for not defeating them all. Those degenerates were older, and more seasoned wizards. It was all of their magics against yours. You'll be a powerful witch someday, but you're not even out of school yet." Lucien carefully lifted his long time friend into his arms. She felt lighter than he expected her to be, and there appeared to be almost no magic left in her. "Curse them all for their cowardice!" The wizard vigilantes had obviously duelled against Mervidith until she was exhausted. Once her magic was spent, they used her.
She lost consciousness in Lucien's arms before he had even taken a few steps outside the perimeter.
"Forgive me, Mervidith." Lucien whispered into her ear. "I know you did not wish to receive medical attention." He raised his hand out from under her and found it to be smudged in blood and other fluids. "But I believe that the severity of your injuries exceeds what my healing potions alone can accomplish."
"After she was released from St. Mungos, your grandmother asked that I help her back to her home. Her parents were notified of the situation, but they seemed to be more angry that it happened than concerned for her comfort and well-being. No one from her family would even visit her while she was in the hospital, or collect her on the day she was released. I did my best to help her with strengthening and healing potions...what little she could take. She was so magically and physically weakened that she could neither eat, nor ingest many of the potions." Lucien lamented.
Harry watched sadly as his grandmother, dressed in Lucien's university robes, limped up the walkway to her home.
"Her own family did not believe that she had been raped, because the hospital reported that she her injuries were only superficial. Muggle girls who fell victims to the wizard gangs were often much more severely damaged or even killed. Because your grandmother was only magically spent and suffered relatively mild injuries, they would not rule it as rape. Everyone else blamed her for what had happened. Her family did not even stand by her when she was charged with violating the rules in place against underage wizardry." Fury gained control of the ghost's expression. "As soon as her parents found out she was pregnant, the Rogues disowned her."
The image of Mervidith Snape, cowering wearily on the front lawn of the Rogue Estate, floated above the pensieve.
"Begone, you witch of easy virtue! It repulses me that you're of my blood!" shouted some one Harry guessed to be Mervidith's father. The man had long dark hair with reddish brown highlights and a gaunt build. "I HAVE NO DAUGHTER! You are Mervidith Rogue no longer! You are a harlot!" The wizard pelted her with piles of clothing and other belongings. "Take your possessions and leave!"
Lucien dashed from the ramshackle house next door, and shielded Mervidith from a particularly large stack of tomes the Rogue matriarch hurled at her deposed daughter. The tomes struck him in the head and back, but the Rogues did a fine job of acting as though he was not there at all. "You are no longer part of this family!"
"So they really didn't care?!" Harry asked through his gritted teeth as he watched Lucien gathering Mervidith's things whilst still being pelted by objects. "If I were Mr. Rogue, I would have hunted all of those boys down and... and... well I don't know what I would have done, but it wouldn't have been very nice! And what? Did they think she would make something like that up? Why would anyone make up a story about being humiliated like that anyway?" Harry stood and looked as though he were about to start breaking objects in the room.
Lucien was taken aback by Harry's tirade. He had never realized that such a young boy could have a temper like that. Then he remembered that Harry wasn't a true little boy and had had years to build up his life experiences. "Harry, do you wish for me to stop for now?"
"Oh sorry," Harry resumed his place next to his father. "I got a little carried away. I lost my head for a bit... so and then what happened?"
"The Rogues disowned her completely. The stripped away her name, and erased every document of Mervidith Rogue's very existence. Even now, in the Magical World, you'll find no legal record that a Mervidith Rogue ever existed."
"Then...then who..."
Lucien exhaled deeply. "She became Eileen Prince. A pureblood, but one with no discernable ties to any of the old Wizarding families."
"Eileen Prince?" Harry repeated, looking crestfallen.
"But in my eyes, and in the eyes of those who still love her, defiled or not, she will always be Mervidith Rogue." A tear trickled down Lucien's cheek as he spoke. "Eileen Prince is only an empty name for a witch who never truly existed. Mervidith Rogue-Snape is your true grandmother."
In silence, Harry agreed heartily. "Did you get in trouble for killing John Potter?"
"No, it turned out that I hadn't killed John Potter after all."
"John!" young Lucien's legs went out from under him upon returning to his flat one night to find John Potter seated at his desk.
"What's the matter, Lucien? Scared of ghosts or the undead?" There was nothing but malice in John Potter's hazel eyes as he loomed over Lucien.
Lucien only stared at John with his almost colourless blue eyes. He did not know what to make of the situation. Was that a ghost? Had John Potter somehow survived? He was drawn from his reverie by a hard kick from John's patent leather shoe.
"I'm not dead!" John dove onto Lucien, and using his collar rammed him into the floor. "But you're still a murderer!"
Lucien easily wrapped his hands around John Potter's neck and turned him onto the floor. "And killing Muggles is also not murder?! You and your friends raided the muggle house that night and slaughtered all the people within, save one who wasn't muggleborn! And you know what you did to her!"
"I wasn't even there!"
"You LIE!"
"I do not care what you choose to believe, Lucien!" John growled. "You can just ruddy die!"
Lucien, who had both a height and weight advantage over John, scooted toward a nearby cupboard, dragging John Potter with him. Lucien continued to restrain John with own his body whilst rummaging through the cupboard.
"Gerroff me, you overgrown albino occamy!" John managed to free one hand and punch Lucien in the nose. "You overlarge snowy white..."
Without any changes to his expression, Lucien wiped his nose on his white sleeve, leaving a broad, scarlet stripe on it. He leaned on John again to still him as he withdrew a phial from the cupboard containing a clear potion.
"Veritaserum!!??" John screamed, struggling beneath Lucien's weight. "That's illegal! I'm going to report you! You'll be sent to Azkaban for the rest of your life! How did you get that?!"
"Brewed it myself." Lucien pressed down on John's forehead and uncapped the top of the phial which already had a dropper attachment on it. "If you weren't in the muggle house that night, then who was?" He put three drops onto John's tongue.
John Potter expectorated in Lucien's face in an attempt to expel the potion, but it was already taking effect. "That was my brother Jephthah Potter you saw...and killed!"
"I've been to your home during the summers before. I've not seen a Jephthah Potter." said Lucien.
"He exists! Or existed!" John went on to explain even without being asked. "When my brother made his unexpected appearance after I was born, my parents immediately contacted a seer." John hissed, sounding rather breathless due to Lucien's unrelenting grasp. "The seer said that the second twin was destined to be an exact opposite of me! He was going to be the evil one. We couldn't have that sort of disgrace upon our family, so we left Jephthah at a muggle orphanage whilst my parents raised me."
"So he has recently reunited with you?"
John bit his tongue in an effort to keep from answering, but the words poured from his mouth, as though propelled by a powerful emetic curse. "I knew about him since I was a tot. I went looking for him this year because I could not make my wife conceive a child, and we needed an heir."
"You're sterile, John?"
"I'm as sterile as you are, Lucien. Functional in every way, but just as sterile as you!" John replied, his expression growing even more vacant as the potion seized more control. "When you were cast out of the Malfoy family, I knew you were forced to take a potion to render you unable to engender children. We were best friends then, Lucien! Slytherins both of us! I would have gone through the fire with you! So I also took an Antispermatogenesis potion as well...if you would be denied a child, so would I."
"John! John...I..." Lucien slowly climbed off of John, who lay motionless on the floor, in the full control of the Veritaserum. "Why?!"
"I was just a stupid kid then. I didn't want you suffering alone." John replied. "We were best friends then! We were best friends, so if you hurt, so would I. We were best friends until you killed my brother! I hate you now!"
"So you brought your brother back into the magical world so that he could produce an heir with your wife?" Lucien asked.
"Yes." John replied. "But even after my wife conceived, Jephthah refused to return to the muggle world. He wanted to stay for the child, so I allowed him to stay, provided he remained hidden. No one could know the Potters had had two sons."
"Were you aware of what your brother was doing when you weren't monitoring his actions?"
"I knew he was getting acquainted with friends of the Potter family, and being reintroduced to the magical world slowly." John stated flatly. "He had a lot to learn. My parents took great pains that he would never find his way to the magical world. His Hogwarts letters, if any, would have been intercepted; and his magical abilities were suppressed by means of spells and potions cast on him at birth."
"Did you know he was going about with a group of hooligans?" Lucien grabbed John's collar again.
"Yes."
"Did you know they were maiming, and/or killing muggles?"
"They do that of their own volition." John responded. "I don't agree with what Jephthah and those extreme rebel wizard groups do, but I am not my brother's keeper."
"Are you aware that one of my close friends, Mervidith Rogue, or Eileen Prince as you probably know her now, was at that muggle house at the time?" Lucien clenched his teeth. "Did you even care that the wizard gang raped her?"
"She should have known better. She deserved it for associating so closely with the muggles..."
"No one deserves THAT!" Lucien slapped John across the face. "Would you say that if it happened to your mother? Your Aunt? Your cousins? Your friends? Or your wife?"
The slap apparently brought John Potter from the effects of the Veritaserum. "You killed my brother! My brother had white blond hair strands in his hand when they found him with a crushed skull. Those hairs are yours Lucien! I'm going to report you for murder."
"And I'll report you and your family for fratricide and infanticide respectively! Sending a perfectly healthy baby into the muggle world during wartime as an orphan, is no different than killing it!" Lucien silenced any further arguments from John by tightening his grasp around his neck, thereby cutting off his air supply. "Besides, how will you report the murder of some one who supposedly never existed? The group he was running with, they believe he was you, do they not?"
John, whose throat structures were hopelessly constricted at the moment, could only nod slightly.
"You would stand to lose everything if you reported this." Lucien said silkily, still not releasing the other man's neck. "Your family would lose their honour, that is if the authorities even believe that Jephthah Potter existed. And if they don't, the whole wizarding world will remember John Potter as a murderous and hateful member of a wizard gang...and one who had nothing against raping one of their own!" Lucien twisted the proverbial knife. "And your unborn child will be shamed even before it suckles at your wife's teat. The child will only know its father was a treacherous criminal!"
"Our friendship ended that day."
"So you and John never tried to make up?"
Lucien shook his head. "And when the paternity spell revealed that the child Mervidith was carrying was Jephthah Potter's, just as John's son was, the rift between us grew even more. I regret not coercing John into keeping his silence about Severus to James. The fight was between John and I, and should never have continued between James and Severus. Both James and Severus were innocents who had nothing to do with this..."
"Thank you..." Harry wrapped his arms around his ghostly grandfather.
"For what?"
"For taking care of grandmother and father. I know if Vold- Mouldyshorts hadn't hurt you, you'd have been the greatest husband and father ever to them." Harry said, enjoying being held by his granddad, even though his body did not feel like a proper body, but more like an energy field.
"How could I do any less? I could not leave Mervidith on her own, homeless, drained of all her magical energy, alone and pregnant. And much later, I could not let Severus grow up without a father's affections... I had been rejected by my own father, and was determined that Severus would not know that pain. " Lucien reminisced, as the Pensieve showed the image of him selling five of the precious stone hair beads. "With the proceeds, I bought the overgrown, run-down property that I commissioned magical landscapers to turn into the grounds of Snape Manor and builders to make the start of this very mansion."
Mervidith lay silently upon a modest, though comfortable appearing four poster bed in a room Harry recognized as the very one they were in at the moment. She appeared very tired, although whether her fatigue was caused by having spent much of her magical energy or from the pregnancy itself, Harry could not be sure. His grandmother wore a long, orange-red dress which matched the ember highlights in her long dark hair. Her stomach was still as flat as it had been in the last image, prompting Harry to conclude that not much time had passed.
"The abortifacient potion will be ready shortly." Lucien said softly.
"Thank you, Lucien." Mervidith replied, her expression very mixed. She looked torn between wanting to kill the infant which would carry her assailant's blood and keeping the child because it was innocent; at least, that was what Harry concluded.
Words appeared to fail Lucien as he held Mervidith's hand. She appeared so weak that she could barely grasp his hand in return. Lucien silently kissed her on her forehead before returning to the Spartan labs which Harry realized also served as the young couple's kitchen. It was nothing like the grand kitchens in the Manors of the present day.
He walked over to the small cauldron, where a green potion was simmering slowly. The pale man added some ground Queen Anne's lace from the pestle to the caldron, stirred it twice and sat in the chair next to the small dining room table to wait.
Lucien rested his chin in his hands. "The irony of it all," he whispered in the direction of the caldron. "I'll be halting the development of a rapist's child, a child which will likely remind Mervvie of that horrible night every time she looks upon its face. Yet..." Harry watched Lucien bite his trembling lower lip, in a manner very similar to way he Severus would later do. The eighteen year old Lucien rose quickly from his chair and returned to the caldron immediately, as though doing so as fast as possible would make the act he was about to do just a little easier.
Strangely, the surface of the green potion had stopped simmering, even though Lucien hadn't reduced the flames. It had taken on a strange appearance, resembling not a green potion, but a dark mirror. Had something gone wrong? Lucien cautiously peered into the caldron, and saw that the potion was still simmering, yet the effervescence did not reach the potion's surface.
"AAAH!" Lucien jumped back and immediately scanned the room. He had not only seen his own reflection on the surface of the potion, but the image of a little black-haired child next him. It seemed as though he were standing beside Lucien and was also looking into the caldron with interest. Lucien peered into the caldron once more, and saw that the ghostly toddler's face was still there, gazing back at him.
Harry immediately recognized the child's reflection to be that of a very young Severus Snape. The night-sky black eyes, the aquiline nose, and the angular face left no question in Harry's mind that he was indeed looking upon the image of his infant father. But there were marked differences to that face. Instead of the forlorn and terrified expression Harry remembered from his sojourn outside of time, this child Severus Snape was smiling and regarding his father-to-be with a look of wonderment and adoration.
Lucien reached for the image of the boy, still reflecting off the dark potion. Severus raised a tiny hand to meet Lucien's in return. The child Severus's smile widened even more, and although he made no sound, his mouth formed the unmistakable word: "Father."
Harry's eyes filled with tears at the sight. Little preborn Severus knew who his true father was destined to be, was unwilling to wait until he was born to meet him.
"NO!" The Lucien in the Pensieve shouted before his hand made contact with the burning potion. He quickly picked up a large stirrer and agitated the potion roughly, willing the boy's reflection away. "Begone! Do not endear yourself to me! I must do what is best for Mervidith now." He continued to stir the potion until the mixture was frothy and could no longer reflect even light.
"I must be daft!" Lucien muttered under his breath. There was a certain injustice to it all. Here he was, a man who could not sire a child of his own; concocting a potion to kill what could be his only chance at raising a child to have his values, his ideals, and his future. A child to be reared as he, and no one else, saw fit.
After taking several calming breaths, Lucien looked into the caldron once more and shifted some of the froth to the side, exposing a reflective area in the centre. There was no sign of the little boy. Lucien then wondered if the vigorous stirring had ruined the potion, so he gathered some treated parchments from a cupboard and returned to the caldron. Once more, and he wasn't sure why he did it, he looked into the caldron, as though searching for that little boy who had called him father. That child, who did not look very much like James or Jephthah Potter, but a lot like Mervidith...and... Lucien shivered... and wore an expression of wonder...like HIS?! Lucien placed the parchments on the table, and prepared the other ingredients to test potency of the potion. But when he turned back to the caldron, he saw the ghostly boy again. This time, he was standing beside the caldron, and attempting to look in. When the boy could not see adequately, he held onto the rim and hoisted himself up, until he had a clear view into the caldron.
Harry smiled at the sight. Even before his own birth, Severus Snape was fascinated by potions. How sad that the preborn Severus was looking at a potion that would mean his death in utero.
Lucien dropped the ingredients and a parchment on the floor. He washed his hands in the nearby sink, then washed his eyes, but the little boy did not disappear. While still clinging to the side of the caldron, the boy turned to Lucien. He mouthed something that appeared to be: "What are you making, father?"
'Your demise,' Lucien almost responded, but he could not bring himself to do that. Instead, he tenderly reached for the little boy. 'I do not wish to kill you.' Lucien mouthed. He leaned close to the preborn Severus and whispered near his head: "Why don't you go and keep your mother company?"
Severus sprang off of the side of the caldron, and grinned at his father before scampering out of the room. Now it was Harry who was shivering. Harry had indeed seen that smile before, in his own reflection! When Harry was very happy, he smiled wide enough to show both his upper and lower rows of teeth. The preborn Severus had smiled in precisely that way.
Harry watched his grandmother enter the Spartan kitchen a few minutes later. She hobbled directly to the caldron. Initially, Harry thought the sight of Severus had frightened her, and that she had come to take a dose of the abortifacient right away. But she did no such thing. Instead, she kicked the cast-iron caldron twice, but in her weakened state, she barely made a ripple on the surface of the potion.
Lucien moved behind Mervidith and supported her in his arms as she told him about the preborn spirit's visit. Harry cheered out loud when Lucien said: "Allow me to assist you, I believe you wished to do THIS!" And he kicked the caldron over with all his might, spilling the abortifacient all over the floor.
Lucien waited until Harry stopped dancing and cheering triumphantly to continue. "On that day, Mervidith stopped mourning her being ousted from the Rogue clan; and I ceased ever looking back on my dismissal from the Malfoys." The Pensieve showed Mervidith resting on a mattress beneath the very oak tree Severus would many years later build a treehouse in. Beside her, with his white haired head against her slightly rounded belly, was Lucien. He was reading a large tome, and Mervidith alternated between reading over his shoulder and serenely watching the stream. "After much research on our families, we discovered a common ancestor. A great potion master named Severitus Snape, the last living person to bear the Snape name. She had two sisters; Adrastea who married my ancestor, and Galatea, who married into the Rogue family. One day, an evil wizard of the time poisoned Adrastea and Galatea. Severitus, knowing that her sisters had families, made a potion to heal them, using her own blood. Adrastea and Galatea lived, but Severitus became ill from losing so much blood and died, and the Snape name died with her. But Severitus's magics were transferred to her sisters, and lived on in the blood of Adrastea Malfoy and Galatea Rogue. And it is in both of us." Harry watched the moving women in the book young Lucien was holding. "If we could no longer be recognized legally by our ancestral names, Malfoy and Rogue, we would reclaim a name that belonged to us both, a name that slept dormant for over 300 years. A name that is our birthright. It is Severus's birthright, and it is yours. We are, and always were; and will forever more be Snapes."
"Just before your grandmother entered the second trimester of pregnancy, we were married. The powerful witches who presided over our joining, reached deeply into our beings with their ancient spells, and brought to the forefront that which made us true Snapes."
The pensieve showed that Lucien was once again laying beside Mervidith with his head next to her considerably larger belly. "You are destined to be the first true Snape to be born in over three-hundred years. This is our gift to you, my son. You'll have a name, a legacy, a home to pass on to your children, and more love than you can hold in your little heart." He put a hand gently on Mervidith's abdomen, and Harry jumped as he saw his grandmother's stomach leap against Lucien's hand. "He moved! Great Merlin, Mervvie! Our son, he moved!"
"He knows his father's voice." Mervidith said, kissing the top of Lucien's head.
Lucien was so charmed by little Severus's movements, that he put his head directly against Mervidith's stomach once more, and allowed little Severus to jostle him as much as the foetus wanted. "Severus..."
"What?"
"Severus..." Harry had lost count of how many times his father had kicked his grandfather in the head. "The name...it came upon me, as though it were from the child?!"
Mervidith placed a hand on the side of her abdomen and felt the child kick her affectionately. "He represents our severance from the Rogues, the Potters and the Malfoys. A parting from their ways, their values and their lives."
Harry watched as the pensieve changed again to show Mervidith, with much of her energy restored, running across the grounds of Snape Manor. Her belly had grown so large, that she looked as though she were smuggling a very large pumpkin under her elegant aquamarine maternity robes.
"Mervvie!" Lucien shouted, struggling to keep up as he ran after her. "You shouldn't be carrying on this way! You'll be giving birth soon!"
"But Severus likes this and no, I'm not due for another three weeks. Severus knows when he's ready.!" Mervidith protested, not slowing in the slightest, even though she appeared breathless. And no wonder! With her stomach so full of baby, Harry could not imagine how her lungs could expand to allow her an adequate supply of oxygen?
Lucien gave up from sheer exhaustion, even pregnant, Mervidith could still outrun him. "Oh yeah? Well if you're so clever, what are you going to do if you're giving Severus motion sickness?"
The Pensieve changed once more, and judging from the size of Mervidith's stomach, and the shrillness of her cries, she was in labour.
"Mr. Snape, she's been in labour for almost 20 hours!" the mediwitch said. "She's exhausted. Can't you convince her to take a pain reducer?"
"Mervidith," Lucien said, offering the pain relieving potion for what seemed to be the twentieth time. "Won't you take it?"
"NO!" Mervidith shouted, nearly breaking Lucien's fingers as another contraction took hold. "Severus will be here when he's ready! The potion will force him out prematurely."
Desperate, Lucien climbed onto the bed and situated himself behind Mervidith. "Then I will use the modified Legillimency on you, it will allow me to bear some of your pain and in turn to instill you with the strength you'll require to see this through to completion."
Despite Mervidith's protests, Harry could tell that Lucien had broken into Mervidith's mind and was intercepting many of the nerve impulses meant for the pain receptors in her brain. It was the strangest thing Harry had seen. Lucien was screaming as though some one had hit him with the cruciatus curse. Strike that, Harry thought Lucien looked as though he were in the throes of ten cruciatus curses...simultaneously. Mervidith appeared to have regained some of her strength and dealt with her labour with renewed determination."
"You're fully dilated." The Mediwitch said from beneath Mervidith's nightgown. "When you feel the next contraction, you may begin pushing."
Harry had never witnessed the birth of a child before, and found the experience to be among the most awe-inspiring of his young life. Making the situation even more unfathomable, he was seeing the birth of his own parent.
The whole scene before him was tempered with underlying sadness. All Harry could see at the moment, was a beautiful, and loving family. Severus was born after what seemed to be hours of agony for both his parents. When the mediwitch placed the newborn between Mervidith and Lucien, he seemed so at peace. How could that peace in his father's eyes have faded so much that Harry could detect not even a vestige of it in the present day Severus. How did this loving family dissolve into an abusive home.
For now, Harry's questions seemed all but irrelevant. Although Grandfather and Grandmother looked utterly knackered, they still looked adoringly at their newborn.
"Welcome to the world, Severus. My beloved son." Lucien whispered, kissing Severus on the forehead. "You're a beautiful child. So much like your mother." Lucien raised his head to look at his wife, but after twenty-one hours of labour, she was no longer awake. He held a hand out to Severus, and the infant grabbed his fingers and held on as if for dear life. "I know you are destined for great things, my son. I feel the magic already rising in you. It is the same magic your mother has." Lucien's eyes widened. "And...and...it feels like...mine?"
Severus looked at his father with the blue grey eyes of a newborn. Harry could have sworn baby Severus sneered smugly at his father, even though babies supposedly don't sneer, as if to say: 'but of course, you are my father, after all.'
The twenty-one hours of labour had taken its toll on Lucien as well, and he nestled his head beside baby Severus, who had not relinquished Lucien's fingers. "I did not think it possible for me to love you; as much as a true father loves his son." Young Lucien closed his eyes. "You are truly destined to be a great wizard, Severus, for you are not more than two hours old, and you have already proven your father wrong at something."
"Grandfather!" Harry wailed, crying as though his heart were breaking. As pleasant as the scene in the pensieve was, he knew what was to come. Mervidith would lose her doting husband. Severus would lose the father he had bonded with even before his birth and would live in fear of him for the rest of his days. And Severus would lose that smile, his jovial eyes would become hollow like tunnels. And his perfect, blemish-free skin would one day bear scars. And his heart would be broken so often that it would serve no other purpose than to keep him alive. He would lose the ability to feel. To love. "I have to go wash my face! I'll be right back."
Just as Harry slammed the door to the water closet, Lucien heard a sob from the direction of Severus's bed.
"Sevvie!" Lucien floated over to Severus, who was now sitting up in bed. What little colour Severus had possessed, had reclaimed it's rightful home on his pale face in spades.
Severus shuddered and pulled back, although he did not appear as frightened of his father as he was before. In fact, he looked less frightened of Lucien than he had been in more than two decades.
"Sevvie," Lucien whispered, "my dear son, are you all right?"
"Fine..." The younger man wheezed, looking around the room. "How did you get into Snape Manor two?"
"I didn't, you're in Snape Manor One."
Severus made as though to bolt from the bed, but Lucien gently, but firmly stayed him by grasping both of his shoulders. In other circumstances, Severus would have screamed and tried to escape using any means available. This time, he just lowered his head, his dark curtain of hair falling on either side of his sallow face.
"Sevvie? How long have you been awake?"
The younger man answered without looking up. "Since late last night." Severus clenched his fists. "You sedated me so heavily, I couldn't wake up! But...but I was aware of everything...I heard everything you said to Harry." Severus still did not raise his head. "Although my eyes were closed, I experienced everything Harry saw in your Pensieve! I felt his every reaction. Felt your sincerity through him."
"I know you'll not be able to forgive me for how I treated you over the years." Lucien brushed some of Severus's hair back, but it fell right back into place. "But I would still like to say I'm sorry for breaking my promises to you. I promised you a home, and I gave you a form of Hell to live in. I promised to give you a legacy, but I only gave you my place amongst the Death Eaters. I promised to give you more love than your heart could hold, and I filled your heart with fear and hatred."
Severus finally raised his head, and his lower lip was trembling fiercely. He tried to dash his tears away, but more appeared in its place. "Why...why didn't you tell me?! Why didn't you tell me any of this before? You never talked to me! You constantly yelled! And if I asked you anything, you slapped me or worse...!!"
Words eluded them both, but Lucien clung to son as though the ghost of a violent father might frighten him off at any moment.
Severus wrapped his arms around his ghostly father's waist.
"I'm so sorry, Sevvie. If I could do anything to undo the harm..." Lucien could not continue, and only rubbed his son's back in precisely the manner that Severus had rubbed Harry's back when he had been upset. That was exactly what Harry saw when he returned to the room.
"Oh father!" Harry jumped onto the bed and hugged both his father and grandfather. "You're all right! You're all right!! I just knew it! Both me and grandfather knew it! You're too obs- obs..."
"Obstinate." both Lucien and Severus mumbled at the same time.
"Yeah!" Harry kissed both men on the cheeks. "You're just too obistanate to die! We all are! Grandfather might have a dead body, but he's not really dead because he's here! Father got hemo-raging fever, but he didn't die, and Mouldyshorts didn't kill me even though he's tried before." Lucien gazed at Harry in surprise, while Severus just nodded. "But we won't go without a fight! You know why?"
"Why?" Lucien and Severus said in unison.
"Because," Harry grinned hugely, showing both his upper and lower teeth, "WE ARE SNAPES!"
End Part Thirty-Five
