Chapter 36
Severus walked briskly down Diagon Alley, not wishing to catch the eye of those who hated him, nor any Death Eaters or supporters of the Dark Lord or Umbridge. He could feel the weight of their glares, and their reproach was boring into his back. They could be anyone. Parents of his students, fellow 'comrades', shopkeepers just trying to earn their living, or the families of victims of this war, of whom there were many. All of them, he had no doubt, held him in the same low esteem.
Snivellous, it seemed, was as unpopular as he had ever been.
He pretended to look vaguely at the wares in the various shop windows as he passed, trying not to appear too interested by a lascivious display of witches' underwear in Twilfitt and Tatting's. He couldn't help focusing on a black brassiere with matching knickers, but mainly due to the Gryffindor-red satin and ribbon detailing upon it. He'd like to buy that for his own little lion and take it off her luscious body with his teeth.
Sleazy bastard, he reprimanded himself. She is not yours, and one does not buy sexy lingerie for their students.
Snape kept his eye on the huge stone edifice that heralded the imposing Gringotts building, situated at the end of Diagon Alley. That was his destination, sent there on a fool's errand from the Dark Lord himself. His only thought was to empty that vault, but without revealing himself, nor to implicate any innocent goblins.
Entering the high-ceilinged reception hall of Gringotts, he was called forward immediately by his name, by a persistent goblin on the first desk, crooking his long finger. Sighing, he walked forward, and was surprised as he lifted his gaze to address the goblin, who would no doubt be surly and rude, like all his kind. However, he was in for a shock, instead.
"Make no obvious sign that you know me," hissed Filius Flitwick, almost unrecognisable out of his teaching robes and wearing the standard Gringotts attire.
His usual clean-shaven look had been replaced by a long goblin's beard, that he must have charmed to grow exponentially fast. What a humiliation for his learned, professional colleague. Still, at least Flitwick was alive, and somewhat at liberty. Severus kept his eyes and expression deliberately neutral, a skill borne of years of necessity.
"Filius, my friend. How are you?" he asked, quietly.
"Well enough, Severus, well enough. What brings you here?"
"I have been instructed to enter the Dark Lord's vault and retrieve an item. I have his magical permission here," Snape replied, passing over the enchanted scroll he had been given, and Filius gave the document a cursory look.
"That object itself will allow you to enter the vault, it is a form of enchanted key. Come, I have reached a high-enough ranking to be authorised to take you there myself."
"You have not been idle, then?"
"Far from it. Whatever use I can be in here, I shall."
"You are a brave man. Lead the way."
Filius climbed the steps down from the tall stool behind the counter and indicated that Severus should follow him, towards the large door at the end of the entrance hall that led to the vaults. It opened at the touch of Flitwick's palm, and they were soon travelling in one of the bank's wheeled carts that trundled through the cavernous maze of vaults on rickety tracks. They did not speak, knowing that any noise they made in the underground vaults would echo to, and be overhead by, any other goblin or visitor who may be currently below ground.
At length, they reached the unmarked vault, and the door was huge, far larger than Severus had ever seen on any other, and had no neighbouring doors. They stepped from the cart, and he looked at Filius expectantly.
"My hand will do no good on this vault. Present the scroll to the door. Voldemort will have imbued it with magic that will open the door."
Severus did as he was bidden, and the heavy door swung open to reveal the huge, almost empty, vault.
"Can you not come in?" he whispered. "I understood from Madam Weasley that you had been able to charm the entrance and discover the contents."
"I have been able to gain entrance, yes. However, as the vault has been opened with an enchanted key, via the scroll, it will admit only the person that it intended, which is yourself."
"I see. Filius, please hold the door wide open. I do not trust the Dark Lord not to have set a trap to seal me inside."
Flitwick smiled, although it was not a pleasant one, and stood in front of the vault door with his entire body keeping it open, his wand drawn in his right hand.
"He thinks of everything, does he?" Filius asked, ruefully.
Severus stepped into the vault, feeling a cold dread snake its arm around his shoulders, as any mission from that soulless bastard did. He needed to be in and out of here as quickly as possible.
"Not … everything," he replied, cryptically, as he surveyed the vault.
The vault was entirely empty, as Fleur had told them, apart from a table upon which sat the destroyed receptacles that had contained the Horcruxes. There was the diary, which Riddle had instructed him to collect, alongside the ring, a locket that bore Slytherin's mark, and the ornamental cup that bore Hufflepuff's.
Granger had told him that Ravenclaw's diadem, also used to house a Horcrux, had been completely destroyed by the Fiendfyre cast by Crabbe in the Room of Requirement, an act that had ultimately cost the stupid boy his life – through his uncontrolled use of the magical, all-consuming fire. But, it had been a fire strong enough to destroy a Horcrux.
He thought fast. Voldemort had sent him to collect the diary, he presumed because he wished to enlist his assistance in an attempt to reanimate the piece of soul that had been inside. If they succeeded, surely it would be him he would send to collect another?
Severus gathered up the other three items and pushed them deep inside the pockets of his cloak. Filius did not know what he had been asked to collect, therefore he could not be implicated. The instructions had been that no goblin should not enter the vault – his former colleague would be safe from retribution.
It would be another story for Severus, however, should his theft be discovered. He was taking a huge gamble. But, it would be courage that won this war, and he was no coward. How many times would he be forced to prove it?
Severus left the vault entirely empty, nodding to Filius that he was satisfied and walked back through the door, which he closed behind him and heard it seal both mechanically and magically.
"You have done all you need to do?" Flitwick asked.
"I believe so," he replied, as they climbed back in to the cart. "Madam Weasley will keep you updated, Filius. I hope it will not be long."
"Thank you, Severus. I wish you well."
They nodded at one another in silent understanding before Filius set the cart to move, which would return them to the main floor of the bank; just a wizard and the Gringotts goblin doing his bidding. Certainly no one that had just looted the vault of the Dark Lord himself.
-xxx-
Before returning to the Riddle House, Severus Apparated into his office and concealed the stolen Horcruxes behind the Pensieve, casting a strong ward around the cabinet. He would return for those, later.
Not wanting to keep a psychopath waiting, Snape then headed straight back to Voldemort with the diary he'd requested, and he received it with eager hands.
"Well done, Severus. I am about to attempt some extraordinary magic with this book, and I shall need your assistance."
"I should be honoured, My Lord. But what of Lestrange? Is he not your second-in-command, should he not be the one to assist you?"
Voldemort's face curled in disgust.
"A wizard who was besmirched and cuckolded by his wife shall never have the position she held with such skill and dignity!" he cried, angrily.
Severus privately thought that dignified was not a word that could ever be applied with any truth to Bellatrix Lestrange.
"Rodolphus only believes himself to be second to me," Voldemort continued. "And that is his greatest use, for it keeps the other rabid dogs at bay. Lestrange played a cunning game in sniffing out the Malfoy boy, and for that he was rewarded, just with a … different reward than he expected. His mediocre skills are not required for the magic we need to perform. For that, I need you.
Now, Severus. I wish to … take you into my confidence. This simple book has far more power than its tattered appearance would suggest. Many years ago, I imbued in it a memory, a living memory of myself that can communicate with the current time, as I was then. As you can see, it was destroyed, and I believe that I have finally created the magic that will reanimate it."
"Reanimate the memory?"
Voldemort's red, suspicious eyes flicked up and stared at him.
"Yes, Severusss. The memory."
Lying bastard, Severus thought, knowing that this was Voldemort's cover story to avoid telling anyone about the Horcruxes, not realising that many people already knew.
"I am not sure I fully understand, My Lord, but I shall attempt to assist you in any small way I can."
"Did you see other objects of mine, when you entered my vault?"
"I did, My Lord. All were broken, or damaged. Did you expect them to be so?"
"Very good. And yes, I did. Should our experiment here be successful, I may find those items … of use, in the future. Now, I see no reason not to start immediately. I shall need some of your blood, just a little, to mix with mine and drop onto the pages of the diary."
Voldemort pulled two tiny silver daggers from the inside of his robes with a flourish, incanted over them, and handed one to Severus. Then he rolled up his own sleeve, exposing a skinny, white arm, hairless and scaly, indicating that Severus should do the same.
"Shall we?"
Both wizards drew the daggers over their skin.
-xxx-
Orla was walking the corridors of Malfoy Manor with Lucius, who had insisted on taking her arm, intent on showing her all the riches that were rightfully hers. The décor was opulent and traditional, and reeked of centuries of wealth. To the outside observer, it must look as if he were doing all the right things, but Orla simply did not trust him. This was the wizard who had albeit condemned his own son to a dreadful fate, as a consequence of his own crimes and failings. Did she want to be the daughter of such a man?
She had Apparated from the Grimmauld Place garden that afternoon, Remus with Teddy astride his hip, enjoying the afternoon sunshine of his own volition, for once. They'd brought sandwiches out to the lawn for lunch, the morning's awkwardness seemed forgotten, and he had sent her off with entreaties to take good care. His face had been etched with concern, though, after all, she was off to Malfoy Manor, never a good place to be, and certainly not a place she wanted to live.
"Um … Father?" she asked, in a stilted manner, testing out the name for the first time, since he had been quite cross when she'd addressed him as Mr Malfoy when she'd arrived.
He gave her a beatific smile.
"See now, that wasn't so bad, was it?"
"I suppose not. It is just going to take a lot of getting used to."
"You have Malfoy blood running through your veins at a time when blood purity is everything, Orla. I should have thought you would be ecstatic at your good fortune."
He seemed pissed off that she wasn't leaping around in delirious excitement at finding out the circumstances of her conception, having no inkling or understanding of the distress this might be causing her. Finding out that the man she believed her whole life to be her father, in fact was not genetically related to her at all. Discovering her mother had conceived her during a brief affair and never told the father. And worst of all, enjoying the beginnings of a beautiful new relationship and then finding out her boyfriend was her half-brother.
None of these seemed to matter one jot to Lucius Malfoy, however, who was intent on bringing home and parading his long-lost daughter. Illegitimacy didn't seem to matter if your blood was of the right purity.
They reached a large door at the end of the hall, and he pushed it open with an encouraging smile, ushering her inside.
"Your room."
Orla stepped into the room, although in truth it was more like a set of chambers than a single bedroom, since she could see a door into an ensuite bathroom on one side, and another that led to a large dressing area, filled with wardrobes.
"Wow."
Really, she couldn't help herself. The room was incredible. It seemed freshly decorated, and all the linens and furnishings smelt of newness.
"Indeed", he replied, and gave her what she thought was a smile of relief, at her approval. "I am glad you like it. I have had this decorated for you just this week, and the armoires are filled with robes from Madam Malkins, Twilfitt and Tatting's, and some of my wife's favourite Parisian tailors for you to try on at your leisure."
This was it. This was what he thought would win her over.
She was saved from answering by the clatter of footsteps in the hallway that sounded as if they were running as they approached.
"No, Lucius! Over my dead body! You will not do this!"
It was Narcissa Malfoy, a woman that Orla had only seen in the flesh once, the night that Draco had been killed. Lucius swung around to face his wife.
"And why not? This is my daughter, and this is where she belongs! What do you suggest, that I put her up in a guest room like a temporary visitor?"
"Of course not!" Madam Malfoy shouted back, "but not here! Not in this room! How could you?"
Orla's eyes batted between the two of them, and it was making her head ache.
"I have had it completely redecorated, Narcissa! It is no longer Draco's room. I have had all his personal items carefully boxed for you, I have disposed of nothing. But Orla is my daughter, your step-daughter, and she must be received as such!"
Oh, holy shite. Lucius had offered her Draco's bedroom? Their dead son's room? Her murdered brother-slash-boyfriend's room? She wanted to vomit right where she stood.
"Madam Malfoy," she began, "I had no idea this was Draco's room …"
"You will call her Mother!" Lucius shouted, and both witches looked horrified.
"She is no daughter of mine," Narcissa retorted, eyeing Orla with hatred.
"Good, because I wouldn't want to be!"
"Stop! You will both stop!" roared her father, pressing his fingertips to his temples as if he was about to have some kind of panic attack.
Draco had told her that Lucius had been addicted to magical opiates since he'd left Azkaban. Orla wondered uncharitably if he needed his next fix.
"I may have to accept you into this house, girl, but you will not have this room. This is all I have left of my son. Lucius, you will return everything to how it was."
Narcissa now spoke more quietly, but it was with just as much venom.
"I lost him too, you know," Orla retorted, immediately wishing she'd kept her mouth shout as the older blonde woman rounded on her.
"You lost him too?" she mimicked, cruelly. "He was my son. I raised him for nineteen years!"
"Nineteen years that saw him marked as Death Eater for the sins of his parents, and then murdered by Voldemort when he tried to escape. Perhaps you didn't do so great a job, considering he didn't even make it out of his teens."
Orla recoiled as Narcissa Malfoy slapped her squarely round the face so hard, that her ear began ringing painfully.
"How dare you?"
"How dare I?" she asked, holding her hand to her smarting face and desperately trying not to cry. "I dare because for the few weeks we spent together, I knew Draco better than you two ever did the whole rest of his life!"
His mother's face looked crestfallen, before being quickly replaced by angry disgust.
"You really were sleeping together, weren't you, you filthy Mudblood slut? I had hoped that was a ruse before the Dark Lord."
"Orla is not a Mudblood, Narcissa!" her husband piped up, a little pathetically, since his wife had firmly taken the reins of this conversation.
"She was no more than a Mudblood at the time, Lucius, and Draco knowingly slept with … that. And his sister! I can only hope to god you aren't pregnant, you damn girl."
"Of course I'm not! We cast charms!"
"Perhaps I ought to check, just to make sure!" Narcissa screamed, her voice rising again as she drew her wand from the sheath at her waist and cast towards Orla.
"Praegnatio revelare!"
Orla knew the spell. It was often mentioned as a joke in the Hufflepuff common room when someone got a new boyfriend, or was caught snogging in an alcove, that they'd need to cast a pregnancy revealing charm if they got any closer, that kind of thing. She'd only ever seen it cast once, during her sixth year on Alessia Barrett, and since Lessi hadn't been pregnant, the spell had fizzed around her abdomen, and then the shower of sparks had fallen uselessly to the floor.
That didn't happen, this time.
Narcissa Malfoy's spell hit her stomach with a painless fizz, and a shower of sparks danced in front of it, forming a pulsing pink ball that danced in front of her for a few seconds, and then dissipated. They all stared, gaping.
"Merlin, save us," Narcissa spat, the first to find her voice. "This child will have webbed fingers and crossed eyes. I will not have this filth in my house, this is a crime against nature!"
"This is my grandchild, Narcissa," Lucius said, very softly. "And yours. This is the only piece of Draco that you will ever be able to keep. Orla and the baby will stay here, in this room."
She needed to get out. Fucking hell, she needed to get out now and never return here. She couldn't even think about a damn pregnancy, Orla could only think about getting out of this godforsaken house alive. She skirted around Lucius and out through the open bedroom door, running full pelt down the hallway towards the wide, majestic staircase that swept into the grand entrance hall.
There were anti-Apparition wards all over the Manor, her father had explained this as he'd shown her around, earlier. When they wished to arrive or depart, the family would use the purpose-built Apparition foyer that was positioned near to the front door. He'd opened the foyer to proudly show her their fine tiling. That was where she was headed, knowing there was no way the older witch and wizard could catch her, unless they used their wands.
Taking the stairs two at a time, she hurtled downwards as Lucius Malfoy's voice began to shout for her to come back, with his wife's screaming at her to go, to get out of this house.
I'm going, you mad bitch, Orla thought, as she threw herself into the foyer and Disapparated, making a messy landing into the Grimmauld Place garden where she scared the shit out of Remus and Hermione who were on the grass in the sun, and made Teddy cry.
-xxx-
Remus could not get up to help Orla, since he was sitting on the small patch of lawn, cradling his shrieking son, who had been startled by her noisy Apparition. Hermione did though, and threw her arms around the trembling girl.
"Orla!" she gasped, holding her tightly and stroking her back. "What happened? Are you hurt?"
For a few moments, the Irish girl could not speak.
"Not hurt," she replied, after a while, and Hermione guided her to sit down on the lawn with them, for the afternoon sunshine was still fine and pleasant.
Remus watched her intently as Teddy began to calm, now just whimpering, and he urgently needed to hear what the girl had to say.
"Malfoy was showing me round the Manor, trying to act the dutiful father, you know? He'd made an amazing suite of rooms for me. Turns out they were fucking Draco's rooms, and his mother couldn't have been more pissed off about it. Long story short, she abuses me and ends up throwing a pregnancy revealing charm in my direction."
"What? But why?"
"I'm not really too bothered about why, Hermione, because the charm was positive."
Lupin felt his jaw drop in shock, and Hermione's eyes opened wide.
"I need to be alone," she said, suddenly, getting up from the grass. "Please, just leave me for a while."
Remus cradled his now-quiet son, stroking his soft blue hair absently and looking to the younger witch for answers. She had none, only questions.
"What can we say to her?" Hermione asked, looking as lost as he felt.
"I have no idea," he replied.
-xxx-
Severus returned to Hogwarts that night bleeding and in rather a lot of pain, but alive, and strangely happy. Voldemort's attempt at reanimating the sliver of his soul contained within the diary had been unsuccessful at every attempt. The magic he had devised was derived from the same dark spell that was used to create Inferi, to reanimate a corpse to do a wizard's bidding.
However, a book was an inanimate object, and therefore had not responded to the spell, or the blood magic that had cost Severus at least a pint of his precious crimson lifeblood. Voldemort had argued that since the diary had once been sentient, as a corpse would have, that the spell should work.
There were so many holes in the desperate plan that had Severus not hated the wizard with a grand, all-consuming passion, he might have felt sorry for him. However, he was delighted, ecstatic, that at least on this occasion, Voldemort had failed to recover a piece of his soul, and fervently hoped it would stay that way.
Not for the first time, he wished he'd just cast an Avada in the drawing room of the Riddle House, but for the same reasons as when he'd been writhing in sexual agony in the cellar, it was imperative that the Dark Lord was killed before witnesses.
As Voldemort had grown angrier and more frustrated, he'd taken out his temper on Severus, not with anything as severe as a Crucio, he preferred an audience for that, but with a number of vicious, petulant little hexes that were now causing his oft-punished body to ache in various places.
Severus walked through to his bathroom, stripping off his clothes as he went, using his wand to seal the open cuts on his arms and setting the shower to run before stepping in, and letting the water cascade hot and heavy on his complaining muscles.
What he wouldn't do to have Granger in here now, to feel her gentle arms upon him, to kiss her lips, to touch her soft body. But yet he could not go to her, for he was no longer under the control of the compulsion curse. He could only wait until the next time she was compelled, the next time she sought him out. He was not her lover.
Sighing, he took his hardening prick in hand and began to masturbate, thankful at least he now had the ability to do so, again. He'd never been so constantly horny in all his life.
-xxx-
It was late, very late at night when Orla heard a light tap upon her bedroom door.
"Come in?"
The door was creaked open and Remus walked in.
"May I?"
"Of course," she replied, sitting up on the bed where she had been laying, still dressed, not sleeping.
He came and sat on the edge of her bed, feet on the floor, and turned to face her.
"How are you feeling, if it is not too trite a question?"
She shrugged.
"Better than I did earlier, I suppose. Getting used to the idea. Even though Draco's mother said it would be born with webbed fingers and crossed eyes."
"Does that mean you intend to keep this child?"
"It does. This is my child, Remus. She belongs with me. There may be health problems, due to Draco and I being so closely related, but I have to give her a fighting chance, I just have to. She was conceived, if not in love, but from a true friendship. She is Draco's only chance to leave his mark upon the earth."
"She?"
"The spell that Narcissa Malfoy cast produced pink sparks."
"Ah. Then yes, it is certainly a girl. Do you know how far along you are?"
"No. I don't know that spell, it's way beyond my skill level."
"Would you allow me?" he asked, drawing his wand from the sleeve of his cardigan. "I used to cast them upon my wife, when she carried Teddy."
"Sure."
He made some small wand movements towards her abdomen, and muttered an incantation she had not heard before. The same ball of pink light was conjured from the end of his wand, and it seemed as if he was counting the seconds before it dissipated.
"Three months, Orla. Maybe just under."
"That far?"
Her stomach began to lurch faster and with more force than the Hogwarts Express. The panic must have shown upon her face, because Remus edged towards her and grabbed hold of both her hands.
"What is the matter? What has happened? Did the spell hurt you?"
"No, nothing hurts, I promise," she replied, squeezing his hands.
"Then what?"
She lifted her chin and looked the kind wizard straight in his honest brown eyes.
"If your spell is correct, Remus, then this is not Draco's Malfoy's child."
"No?"
"No. It is Yaxley's."
