AN:

— Part 2 of ? in the Until Omega Series

— Part 1 must be read to fully understand Part 2

Divert

"You have a problem, Rowle."

"Excuse me?"

Leaning against the wall in Malfoy Manor, silver skull mask dangling from his hand, Snape raised an eyebrow and waited.

"I thought we agreed our last meeting was exactly that, our last," he finally said, crossing his arms as he met his former professor's bored stare.

Pushing off the silk paper covered wall where he had been resting a muddy boot from their evening of ambushing the Order members tasked with relocating Potter, he shrugged, "Okay fine," beginning to walk away. However, just before he turned the hall's corner, he added, "I just thought you and your Russian dog would want to know your potion suppressed and unknowing omega has just taken up residence with no less than five unmated Alphas."

"Wait!" Thorfinn called out, his boots thundering on the antique carpet as he came after his and Antonin's questionable ally. Grabbing the other Alpha by the throat, he slammed him to the floor, his forearm pressing down as his hand shoved his face into the rug. "What the fuck did you do?"

"Use that considerable brain I know is in there, pup," he condescendingly replied, raising Thorfinn's hackles. "Why would I help you only to screw you?"

"I don't know, Snape. Why do you do anything you do?" Pressing deeper into the man's throat despite his alabaster skin beginning to color, he growled, "Why does who she is staying with matter?"

"He would probably be able to answer, if you let him breathe," Antonin drawled from an opposite direction. Approaching with his wand casualing rolling between his fingers, Thorfinn let up his hold and demanded, "Explain."

Trying a random door, the other Alpha he shared his omega with nodded to the darkened space and said, "Not here."

Standing up, he directed Snape ahead of him with his wand, barely leashing his animalistic rage as the potions master commented, "If you're not careful, you're going to get yourself killed and what a pitty that would be. Your sweet, little omega with a heat on the rise left alone to fend for herself. How long do you think she'll manage before another Alpha comes in and knots her cunt?"

"You fucking-"

"Thor," Antonin warned, grabbing his shoulder though doing nothing to actually hold him back. "What went wrong, you duplicitous snake? You assured us that the strength and quantity of the suppressants would make it so that she appeared to have never presented."

Stupid or over confident — Thorfinn couldn't read his former head of house well enough to know which — Snape pocketed his wand as he remained unaffected by their menacing tones and bubbling possession demanding they defend their mate. Perching himself on the corner of a bureau he laced his fingers together over his thigh like he was getting ready for a lecture and explained, "The youngest Weasley son unsurprisingly is a Beta. Potter while not yet seventeen, we collectively agreed was neither Alpha nor omega, making them both neutralized threats. The daughter is still a year off and will only just begin to come into her tendencies over the next twelve months. Likewise, both parents are Betas, making the Burrow a relatively safe place until Miss Granger, Potter, and Weasley follow through on the plans you two helped her craft for striking out on their own."

"Yes, we went over this already, get to the fucking point!" Thorfinn snarled.

"Muzzle him, would you?"

"Why?" Antonin retorted. "It's not like it'll save you if he decides to gut you like a pig."

Pacing the room like a trapped animal, Thorfinn felt the weight of Snape's assessing stare and whirled around ready to snap as the other Death Eater said, "You're getting ready to go into rut. You're already beginning to feel her coming heat through the reciprocated bite. I assume you won't be far behind him, Dolohov. An hour at most if I had to guess."

"How is this happening?"

"We did not anticipate the wedding. William Weasley is set to marry in a matter of days. The first of the children to marry and the entire flock of Weasleys has returned home. That means your mate is swimming in Alpha pheromones."

"How many Alphas beyond Bill could two Betas have possibly birthed?" Antonin asked, sounding almost snide but beneath it, Thorfinn could smell the faint trace of concern growing and evolving into fear.

"There's Charlie," Thorfinn answered, recalling his joint tenure with the Gryffindor quidditch player turned dragon tamer.

"The twins as well," Snape supplied.

"But that's only four; earlier you said five."

"What, four isn't enough?" Antonin growled, his accented words turning thick.

"The Veela. Her particular creature status, while only partial, automatically designates her an Alpha. Add in her pending nuptials to the eldest Weasley and the two will be near feral with the desire to jointly claim an omega — one on the cusp of heat no less — ahead of their binding.

"And based on Rowle's behavior, I would guess you have less than four days before your mate's designation breaks through the blockers."

"Chertov ad!" Antonin roared, jabbing his wand at an unsuspecting chase and obliterating its existence, a continuous string of shouted expletives in both English and Russian bracketing his spells.

Experiencing a burst of accidental magic as he set fire to the drapes, Thorfinn snapped, "I told you this was a stupid, fucking idea. 'We'll just suppress and Obliviate her, Thor. It'll keep her safe until a side wins the war,'" he mocked. "I swear to Odin, I will make Tyr weep with the amount of your blood I will spill if one of those fucks so much as touches a single curl on her head."

Suddenly stopping in his destruction, Antonin prowled forward and demanded, "Why tell us? What's in this for you?"

"Same as before. An indebted ally should I need one."

"No…" Thorfinn slowly said, his head canting to the side as he mirrored his friend's movements, the two of them beginning to circle the potions master. "It's more than that. What, you think by helping we'll loan her to you, is that it? Because if that's the case, I'll—"

"Down boy," Snape dismissed with a wave of his hand. "If I wanted the girl, I could have made a claim over her long before the two of you did. In fact, I'm sure that meddlesome fool I killed would have insisted upon it had her designation been brought to his attention. As it is, I still live as if I'm spoken for, so your omega's scent has no effect on me."

"You're mated?" they both asked in shock. "To who?"

"Doesn't much matter anymore," he answered, pulling his already high collar up on his neck. "But now you know something about me and why I have a vested interest in you two not finding yourselves facing the same future that was my past. Losing a mate… especially to another Alpha… you're never really whole again."

"How long will it take to make another brew of that potency?"

"We're not doing that again, Antonin," Thorfinn decided. "We tried it your way and look what it's getting us. Now it's my turn."

"And where do you propose we keep her, huh? In your manor, trapped like a prisoner?"

"The school," Snape supplied. "You keep her in your manor until the term begins. Then you two take the place of the Carrows on the staff — consider this me calling in my favors from brewing the potion for you and warning you — and bring her with you. Her designation will have to be disclosed but as she's already willingly accepted a bite from the both of you, there isn't much the school nor you both need worry about, beyond the hell her classmates will no doubt put her through for sharing your bed. The Dark Lord and the Muggleborn Registration however… well, let's just say I don't envy the world of hurt you two will be in when he finds out you jointly claimed a muggleborn, the muggleborn, and proceeded to keep it hidden all this time."

Undoing several buttons on his Oxford and beginning to scratch at the gland in the crook of his neck, Antonin asked, "How long did you say we have?"

"No more than four days and that's being generous."

"Fuck, that doesn't give us much time considering the attack on the wedding will be our first chance to take her and that's in three days."

"Then we should begin warding the manor against interruption tonight," Thorfinn replied, drumming his fingers on the sides of his thighs, feeling like a live wire. "With any luck we can pass off our claim over her as having happened following this attack and not the one from last summer."

"You should also prepare for the other Alphas to try and take her in the chaos," Snape warned, standing up. "Where the Weasley sons and the Veela will not force themselves on her, you know our brethren will not show the same honorable self restraint over their designation."

Giving a feral grin, Thorfinn challenged, "I'd like to see them fucking try."