Summary: SSHG, AU, The Marauders have been tormenting the students of Hogwarts for years, but when a prank goes to the extreme, it doesn't hurt Snivellus. Instead, it takes out his friend, Hermione.
Beta Love: The Dragon and the Tree Pollen, Dutchgirl01 the Dawnbreaker, and Flyby Commander Shepard the Wayward Budgie Wrangler
Warning: Violence, karma—perhaps violent karma.
Art on Ao3
The Price of Mischief
I find it's usually the bullies who are the most insecure.
Tom Felton
For once, the attention wasn't fixated on him or Slytherin.
For once, he wasn't being strung up, stalked, and somehow found alone no matter what he tried to do.
For once, all eyes were on James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin.
And, irony of ironies—Lily Evans.
Perhaps, Lily hadn't realised what helping her housemates would do. Perhaps, she had thought it truly just a prank, but regardless—
All eyes were now on Gryffindor—and the headmaster was in discussions with people behind closed doors.
And because it was secret and behind closed doors, of course, everyone knew about it.
And yet, he took no comfort in it.
Hermione lay in an infirmary bed having been savagely mauled by Lupin.
Werewolf Remus Lupin.
She'd tried to save HIM.
If he hadn't been so damned determined to catch them when they were up to no good, get them in trouble, and find out what the hell was going on—
Hermione wouldn't be laying in the infirmary infected with lycanthropy.
His fault.
His bloody fault.
She was already a pariah thanks to Lily.
She wasn't "pretty."
She wasn't "popular."
And when she needed him to trust her the most, he'd told her off and stormed off to get attacked by a werewolf.
She had saved him.
But she couldn't manage to save herself.
And the infirmary—
Madam Pomfrey had it locked down tighter than Azkaban.
He wasn't sure how she was—
He could only remember how she looked when they'd dragged her off to the infirmary. Bloody. Savaged. Limp.
The guilt weighed heavily on him, and for once, he didn't care that Potter and his cronies were finally in big trouble. What good was that when Hermione was injured and possibly dying—
"Severus."
"Severus!"
Severus jolted. His mind felt like it was dipped in molten taffy.
"Slughorn said we could go visit her in the infirmary," Regulus said. "Let's go, yeah?"
Severus got up silently, following Regulus out of the Great Hall.
When Severus and Regulus showed up in the infirmary there was madness being served on a plate of utter chaos. The room was in total shambles. Beds flung to the walls. Trays flung to the floor. Curtains torn, mattresses ripped apart like rice paper in a hurricane.
Two wolfen creatures snapped, snarled and tore into each other—fangs bared, claws tearing—fur flying in all directions.
Figures—Ministry officials with sombre expressions on their faces—watched from behind a heavily warded magical barrier.
A scrawny, dirty blond wolf viciously lunged over and over—
The other wolf—a tawny, reddish and black beast—stood her ground, lips pulled back from red-stained teeth. She had obviously made her point to the other beast multiple times. The blond wolf sported shredded ears and fresh claw wounds were gouged across one side of his face.
He lunged again, but this time, the red-brown wolf snapped her teeth, tearing into the other wolf's neck and then she used her entire body weight to check him into the wall.
"Are you sure we were told we could be here tonight?" Severus whispered urgently.
Regulus gawped, obviously unsure.
The blond wolf finally seemed to give up as his body crumpled to the floor.
It was only then that Severus noticed a familiar figure he never thought to see in the Wizarding World. Not ever.
Thick black hair, much like a mane of a lion, framed a pale face.
Paler than he'd ever seen it.
Eyes like fire trapped in a marble amidst a field of deep space.
Gone was the drunken swagger.
Gone was the temper that seemed to pick a victim by random and run with it.
Gone was everything he had ever thought he knew about his father.
And his father walked right through the barrier like it was nothing.
He extended his arm silently—imperiously. Yet—his face was placid. Calm.
The red-brown wolf bounded over to him, tail held high until she got closer, and then she tucked it slightly, sitting in front of her like a loyal hound waiting for a signal.
His father flashed fangs, biting his wrist, and offered it to the wolf, and the wolf lapped at the offering like a child with an ice cream cone.
As she licked the crimson from his wrist, he used the other hand to pet her gently between the ears, rubbing her furry, almost-curled scruff with affection. He cupped the wolf's head in his hands between his palms and lay his forehead against hers.
The she-wolf whined and tried to lick under his chin. Their eyes glowed gold together, a flare of powerful magic cementing between them.
"You are Siennah," he told the wolf in an accent that was foreign—a hint of something ancient trapped in time. "Tu mea lupa."
He stood, and the she-wolf sat at his leg, ears swivelling but otherwise relaxed.
He moved to leave the barrier.
"That's not safe!" one of the Ministry wizards protested.
His father's eyes glowed a deep, malevolent crimson. "You doubt the strength of a familiar and my ability to control her instincts?"
The Ministry people seemed to pale at once simultaneously. Severus smelled the acrid odour of urine.
"No, Lord Tobias," the official said, bowing as if to apologise. "I beg your forgiveness."
"See that all of her records are sent to the Nation," Tobias ordered. "All of them. I will tend to her schooling and training."
"Y-yes, Lord Tobias," the official stammered.
"Have all of her things sent to me," Tobias said, his face a mask of stone detachment. His crimson eyes glowed as he cast his gaze to where Lupin was piddling in the corner. "And I want that werewolf's pelt on my floor."
"B-but begging your Lord's tolerance," the official said. "It's a student. A minor!"
Tobias' eyes narrowed. "Then wait for him to be of age, then skin him," he said through bared teeth. "Come, mea lupa," he said, his voice holding a different tone to it.
The wolf beside him promptly hopped to her feet and dutifully followed him out of the infirmary.
As Tobias walked out, his gaze locked on Severus no longer than a second. Severus felt a roll of forbidden power in that gaze that left no mistake of both his anger and his control.
There was no recognition in that gaze at all.
"You are of the Heart Wolves, the Sanguinarian," Tobias said as he brushed Hermione's coat to rid her of the spring "blow out" of thick winter fur. "The Sang have had symbiotic relationships with your species since long before humans had wolves or dogs. And much like us, your kind have been able to pass as human—at least for a while."
"So—I'm not a werewolf?"
"No, child," Tobias assured her. "The moment your blood fought off the infection and you shifted for the very first time, you became a fully awakened Sanguinarian. Your body sent out a sort of homing beacon for me to come rescue you. But—it also triggered a premature non-moon shift in your schoolmate. The werewolf."
"Remus Lupin," Hermione said thoughtfully.
The irony of the name is not lost on me," Tobias said. "Many a young Roman was weaned on the stories of Romulus and Remus suckled by a she-wolf, but—so too did they learn the tale of King Lycaon, who offended the gods so thoroughly that they transformed him into a werewolf so his body suited his level of depravity—neither the noble wolf nor the sentient mind of a man, forever trapped being neither and yet both. While some stories say he simply suffered his transformation into a wolf, many believed nothing as great and revered as a wolf that could suckle Romulus and Remus could possibly be a punishment of the gods. But a werewolf is truly a tortured creature. Unable to reason. Unable to be content. Unable, even, to yield to their better unless that better uses violence more powerful than their own. An endless cycle of violence—both in creation and destruction. No matter how kind or virtuous the person in human form—the werewolf is a violent, desperately lonely creature whose hatred for humans is matched only in the need to transform them into beasts like themselves."
Tobias rubbed and stroked her head, and Hermione's eyes half-closed in blissful pleasure.
It felt like nothing she'd ever experienced in her life. It was like being embraced by his magic, scent, and presence, and it was comforting beyond anything she'd ever felt. She could feel his emotions without even looking, and with just a single touch, she knew why her ancestors thought that bonding with vampires was a winning combination.
She knew he would never intentionally hurt her because to hurt her was to bring harm upon himself, and—
The door opened, and two other vampires seemed to float in, their feet barely even making a sound even to her own enhanced hearing. Her ears swivelled, her nose worked, and she felt her tail wagging furiously in recognition.
"Ah, there you are, Tobias," the darker of the two said. He had warm, brown eyes when his vampiric powers weren't at the front, and an even warmer smile. His energy was calmer, and it spread to those around him with what Hermione would have considered as comforting as a hug. He was Rada. One of Tobias' triumvirate.
His companion she recognised from Slughorn's dinners: Sanguini—only gone were the illusions of boredom and detachment. The mundanity. The easily dismissed. He had his black hair pulled back into a loose ponytail leaving strands and small braids to hang in front of his ears. His eyes, too, were brown when his vampire nature wasn't at the surface. His face was finely chiselled, his fingers like a pianist's.
She could sense their power flowing beneath their skin like a lingering scent, their history. She could sense the tightness of their bonds interlocked with a passing of years that only an immortal could possibly achieve.
They had weathered time together. Trouble. Prosperity. Danger. Peace. War.
She knew it because their blood flowed within her now, binding her to their souls as much as their minds, and she also knew she would protect them with her life—by any and every way at her disposal.
She had grown up an orphan—her parents having been lost, or so she had been told. Stories said they had been dentists killed in a trolley accident. She wasn't sure, anymore, what to believe. Dentistry hardly seemed like a lupine sort of occupation. Then again—she had no idea what those like her did, since they did try to fit in until the last thing they wanted to do was fit in.
She, much like her bondmates, had to walk in the human world as much as they did the supernatural one. Now that she was stable and fully bonded to her "people," she could resume her Wizarding studies.
Well—once she figured out how to shift back, or rather, shift into the shape she'd worn for the majority of her life.
Thankfully, Sanguini was a patient teacher, and he didn't mind teaching a wolf until she figured out how to have hands again.
She did wonder how her peers were doing at Hogwarts, though. They thought she was a werewolf, now, thanks to Remus' mauling. She would never be more than a pariah after his attack. Explaining what she really was—
That would be much worse.
Vampiric lupine shapeshifting monster would go over about as well as Fenrir Greyback in a daycare facility.
She wondered how Severus was. He had been a prat, for sure, but James Potter and his gang of wazzocks had been the thorn in his side for as long as the sun rose and set over Hogwarts.
She should probably write to him.
A surge of overwhelming pleasure came as both Sanguini and Rada gave her thorough pettings.
Later.
Important wolf stuff going on.
Hogwarts Students Brought Before Wizengamot After "Prank" Goes Pear-Shaped With Near-Deadly Consequences
Minerva McGonagall Appointed Temporary Headmistress Headmaster Albus Dumbledore Charged With Student Endangerment, Reasons Remain Undisclosed to Public
I really wish you were here to see this, Hermione. I've never seen Gryffindor so humiliated. But Severus is a total wreck. He thinks he as good as murdered you. I told him that dead people don't write letters, but he seems convinced that brooding and moping is the ultimate key to success in life. You know how wound up he gets.
Anyway, he told me to keep my pureblood nose out of his bloody business. He's such a cranky git whenever he's truly upset about something.
I hear the Wizengamot trial for Potter and his merry band of wankers is coming up. Severus has to go testify. I guess it all comes out there. Are they making you go too? Or are they having someone there to represent you?
Don't take this wrong, but I hope they make you go. Severus really needs to see for himself that you're okay. Or— at least see how not okay you are. He's just making stuff up as he goes along, and his mind is making up the worst possible scenarios. You know how he is. It's never a rainshower. It's always a monsoon with flesh-eating acid potion falling from the sky.
If you can write, please do. At least if you write to me, I can yell it at Severus as bad poetry and dodge his hexes. If anything, having a wanker for an older brother gave me really good reflexes.
Yours,
Regulus
Regulus, despite being able to sit with his family, wanted to support his friend. Severus deserved that much. They'd been the victims of Potter and his idiots for longer than their entire school careers. Regulus would at least have one year without his brother being one year behind him in school—but Sirius was still his brother. He'd have to live with him for the rest of his life in one way or another—even if he did get one year away from him at school.
The once merry band of wazzocks (a phrase Severus not so fondly used and it rubbed off on Regulus) was looking not so merry of late. It'd be satisfying if it hadn't been Hermione who had taken the brunt of it.
Hermione had ardently defended anyone who was being mistreated, and she didn't give a flying fig what house they were in—and that meant Slytherin students, not just Severus and Regulus, were on her protective ire list. This had put Hermione in a place that was unlike most in Hogwarts—a non-Slytherin who was appreciated by Slytherin.
But it had made her some enemies in return, for many people believed that if you liked Slytherins you were no better than the worst of Slytherin—and nothing would change their minds.
Regulus noticed that Severus' mum Eileen was—and she was there apparently because of their being minors—looking decidedly uncomfortable. Yet— his inglorious father was not. From the stories Severus told of his Muggle father, it wasn't too hard to see him not showing up even if he wasn't a Muggle.
He saw the head of the Black family on the other side of the room—well, of his, anyway. Cygnus was his own country in many ways, refusing to admit anyone but himself and his immediate family mattered. His father, Orion, was clearly not harbouring any good will toward his eldest son. If it wasn't a public place, his mum would be full-on shrieking at him, and from her rather sour expression in the non-Wizengamot seating, well, she was probably akin to Krakatoa. She'd blow and everyone all the way to China and the Americas would hear the ensuing eruption.
And he and his father and everyone at ground zero would all be deaf.
His mum definitely had a great set of lungs.
Sirius would say it was his entire family that drove him to embrace Gryffindor, but in many ways, Regulus thought his older brother was, if anything, just running in order to cast blame on anyone but himself.
And if this trial proved anything—it was that his elder brother had no conscience whatsoever. He was utterly devoid of any thought that his actions could possibly harm an innocent on his blazing path to vengeance.
One by one, the Gryffindor pranksters walked to the centre of the room and submitted to the Ministry officials to have their memories extracted and placed into the Pensieve for all to view—some sort of glowing crystal suspended above the water projected the memories into the centre of the room in a kind of holographic form that brought the scenes to sickening life. He hadn't known that was even possible.
Oddly, Potter wasn't to blame in this particular incident. He'd been trying to keep Lily from going out in the moonlight, not even aware that Sirius was out there leading Severus to his doom.
Pettigrew, however, was no innocent. He had hit a knob on the Whomping Willow while in his rat form to ensure Severus was able to access the path to the Shack.
This made them think about who else might be an Animagus—and the people soon realised that James, Sirius, and Peter were all unregistered Animagi.
The lines on his father's face were getting deeper and deeper by the moment. To become an Animagus was quite a feat. To register as one, trivial. But they had kept it secret so they could sneak out to see Lupin and set him free so he could romp around the green with them—
They said to "keep him company," but apparently hanging out with him in the shack was not enough. They had to set him free—
Free to run in anyone who might be out dodging curfew, snogging or smoking weed under the Quidditch stands, or maybe walking in the forest from Hogsmeade—
It was a miracle it hadn't ended even worse with a younger child or a citizen of Hogsmeade getting—bitten or worse.
No—hell—it would have been worse either way. No matter WHO was bitten. Student, teacher, staff, or any random innocent on the outside.
The list of offences just seemed to be growing longer and longer, and it was obvious that many on the Wizengamot were not amused—
Perhaps even more so at Headmaster Dumbledore, who had harboured a werewolf at the school—knowingly—and somehow didn't know or care that he had students running amok after curfew as animals while setting loose a bloody werewolf.
Dumbledore would have everyone believe there was no way he could have possibly suspected that his precautions could be so easily circumvented—
Regulus was, and perhaps so many others, unconvinced.
For someone who many believed was almost preternaturally gifted to the point of omniscience—he was failing utterly.
When it was Severus' turn to submit his memories, the room was filled with his gut-twisting sense of guilt—something that permeated every memory he had. Guilt for having gotten his friend hurt and just about everything else he could make up for a reason to be guilt-ridden.
When they saw Sirius leading him to the path and letting him in—they felt the then-Severus' hope that he'd finally gain actual evidence of their wrongdoing as well as find out why his most bitter rival-tormentors were frequently skulking about in the dark.
They heard the agonised screams of Lupin—many actually seemingly wincing in sympathy.
They saw his body as they heard the crunching, tearing, twisting, and reforming of his cursed body into something quite inhuman.
They saw the werewolf lunge at Severus almost immediately, slavering, clawing, clearly desperate to wound him in any way possible.
And they watched as a terrified Severus fled through the memory, tripping, stumbling, clawing his way back out that passageway.
The memory was a frenetic swirl of movement, almost nauseating in all the jerking and twisting of a desperate escape from the jaws of a werewolf.
And then he suddenly tripped—
Over a black dog.
There was a collective gasp from the horrified viewers as the werewolf leapt—
A beam of energy shot out of nowhere, surrounded Severus in a protective bubble of magic, and flung him arse over t—towards Hogwarts, carrying him to safety on the ramparts many floors up.
But when Severus looked over the ramparts, he saw Hermione attempting to flee the werewolf only to see a rat jump up and cling to her face, attempting to scratch her eyes out. Then a snarling black dog gripped her by the robes and prevented her escape—
As the werewolf leapt upon her.
The sound of tearing flesh and her shrill screams of agony did what his breathless run could not.
Staff rushed out onto the green, flinging a flurry of spells until the werewolf was swaddled in vines—and McGonagall-cat fell upon the rodent with a yowling hiss of feline fury as Flitwick charmed a rock into a statue of Rowena Ravenclaw so the dog ran right into it with a sharp crack, yelp, and collapsed unconscious on the ground.
It was then and only then that James Potter ran out of the castle, yelling "Padfoot, are you alright? Where is Wormy? Why are you out here—" He stared in shock at the sight of the bundled, restrained werewolf as Lily slammed into the back of him.
Lily saw the staff levitating Hermione's savagely mauled body to the infirmary and hurled her supper all over James' shoes.
The Wizengamot took a break after the last batch of memories to get some air and clean themselves off. Many had hurled onto the floor or on each other, unable to take the horrific sight and sounds of a werewolf mauling a teenage girl—even second-hand.
Severus took a seat next to Regulus and put his head in his hands.
Awkwardly, Regulus put his arm around his friend, rubbing his back. There had been a time when Sirius had done this to him—when they were young, when it was them against the world. Those days were long gone, but Regulus knew well what it felt like to have no way out. Severus just let him. All his fight seemed to just pool onto the floor beneath him.
Severus had taken Hermione's mauling personally—and by personally he meant directly to the soul as if he was weighed down physically with his guilt. No matter what Regulus tried to say, he didn't believe he could be forgiven. Meanwhile, his wanker of a brother was doing his best to avoid getting punished (not that it was working.)
The Wizengamot was not looking exceptionally forgiving.
By the time the members all filed back in, they closed the doors again. His father had told him that they always locked the doors just in case someone who was found guilty attempted to escape during the proceedings. He'd never seen it happen, but it made sense to Regulus that it could.
The next person they called up was Lily Evans, and for once, Severus didn't look even remotely conflicted about her presence. Normally, Severus had her perched upon a high pedestal of can-do-no-wrong, but Regulus had a very strong feeling that his friend no longer believed Evans was quite so faultless and perfect. He probably burned down the pedestal.
And when Lily's memories of sending Hermione after Severus—clearly knowing in advance that Severus was being pranked—Regulus knew it would be a matter of deciding if she meant it so Hermione would help her friend or if it was to endanger Hermione as well.
Regulus watched the people murmuring to each other in the public seating. The Wizengamot themselves seemed—divided on her guilt. But he—he was leaning towards a verdict of guilty. If Evans had truly wanted to help, she would have gone for a teacher. She hadn't. Instead, she had deliberately sent Hermione right in the path of the werewolf—
Had she known it was going to be a werewolf, specifically? That remained to be seen.
Witches could be incredibly petty creatures as often as wizards could be self-serving. One perceived slight, and a witch would often make their wizards grovel to make it up to them. Did every witch? No. Did many a witch? Yes.
He was convinced they went to some sort of a secret class for witches on how to be emotional manipulators—gods knew his own mum was an O-rated student in that subject.
And there, perhaps, was why Hermione had found allies in Slytherin. She didn't have a manipulative bone in her body. She had to try really hard to break a rule, and then she practically broke out in hives for doing it. Telling one lie almost had her turning blue—literally.
Many people in Slytherin had tried to get Severus to ditch Lily for the more obvious (healthier) choice. Everyone seemed to see it but Severus himself.
Well, then, anyway.
Now, faced with the prospect of a life without the friend he hadn't even realised meant so much to him, Severus was a wreck.
Regulus was hoping that Hermione would be at the hearing—even if they didn't have her come up in front of everyone. If Severus could just talk to her—see her—maybe he would be able to start healing. He didn't want his friend to be so crippled by his guilt. It was understandable to be upset—Regulus was too—but Severus was barely functioning.
Lily looked super uncomfortable, and Regulus couldn't help but think "good." She deserved to get the negative attention she'd earned for once instead of being in the spotlight that had so many people lining up to kiss her feet.
"The Wizengamot will pause for lunch and to discuss the memories submitted by the victim in private," the head Mugwump announced. "This is not for the public, as we will not make the victim a victim again for all and sundry to see. The doors will reopen once our deliberations are concluded."
"Come on, let's get some air, yeah?" Regulus said to Severus.
His friend looked at him with strained eyes. He nodded glumly.
"Where did your mum go?" Regulus asked.
Severus frowned. "I'm not sure. She said she was feeling a bit sick—maybe she went to the loo."
Regulus, not really blaming her for being queasy after what they had so recently witnessed, nodded. "Come on, let's get you some tea. I could really use some too."
As they got their drinks from a tea cart out in the lobby, Regulus spotted Severus' mum sitting on a bench some distance away and tugged him along.
"Miss Prince," a low voice said—familiar. "It has been a dog's age."
"I-I am not a Prince," Severus' mum said nervously. "I am married."
"Oh? And what name would that be, Eileen?" The voice was dark, dangerous.
"I am a Snape," Eileen said, trying to sound decisive, but her voice—trembled.
Tobias looked down at his familiar, his hand gently placed on her head as if to indicate the beast was under control. "And where is her friend, Madam Snape?"
"My son does not make friends with animals," Eileen sniffed.
Tobias' lips twitched slightly.
The wolf at his side showed her teeth, and Eileen cringed.
"Da, what are you doing here?" Severus said, rushing up. "Mum?"
Tobias' expression seemed like stone on a statue. "Father?" His gaze narrowed onto Eileen. "Tell me, 'son,' what is my given name?"
Severus scrunched up his face. "Tobias Snape. Have you been drinking again? Why are you here? This is a magical place."
Hermione growl-RUFFED at Severus.
Severus startled and suddenly remembered the night in the infirmary when a man that looked just like his father tamed the giant wolf and walked out of Hogwarts with her. He blinked fiercely. "Uhh—do you have a twin brother?"
Tobias' face did not move. "No, I do not. Tell me, just how similar do I look to your—father who is also called—Tobias?"
Severus stared at him. "Could I see your hand? Your left one."
Tobias narrowed his eyes and extended his hand. Dark, dangerous-looking claws sheathed into his fingertips.
Severus flipped the hand over and back. He dropped it, his face confused. "You're not him—you, er—him—ugh—Tobias my father has a scar on his left hand from where he stabbed himself with a fork in a drunken rage. But other than that, you look—identical to him."
"I think we need to have a talk—Madam Snape," Tobias said, his tone full of warning.
Eileen got up suddenly and tried to leave only to have a pale man with black hair pulled back in a ponytail block her way. She went another way, pushing by Severus—
Only to run into another pale man with black, curly hair and a serene expression.
"I believe you have some explaining to do about how I woke up alone in a hotel suite with no money, no clothes, and the events of an entire weekend missing from my mind," Tobias said. "We can either do this the civilised way—" he gestured to the Aurors that were making their way towards them. "Or the ancient way." He nicked one finger on one fang and showed it to her.
Eileen bolted through the crowd.
"Ancient way it is then," Tobias muttered. "Siennah," he said with a commanding tone. "Fetch."
Hermione leapt into action as a blur of honey-brown fur as the crowds frantically parted for her.
"Lord Tobias, if you could please release her from your power," the Auror said. "So we can administer the Veritaserum."
Tobias gave a slow blink and silently waved his hand.
Eileen slumped and shook off the haze and then began to struggle and scream.
Tobias rolled his eyes as if to say, "You asked for it, I could have used a gag."
Severus sat with Regulus, desperate for a little comfort in an increasingly confusing, fucked up world.
When Hermione came over, tail wagging, Severus leapt to his feet and yelled in a panic.
Hermione's head drooped and her posture seemed to deflate. She lowered her head and trotted back to Tobias' side, and lay her head in his lap.
Tobias' pale, clawed hand gently stroked her head as her tail beat the ground lightly. "Be at ease, mea lupa," Tobias said quietly. "Not all can accept you for who you are. Only what."
Hermione whined, closed her eyes, and began to doze with her head in Tobias' lap.
Regulus shot a look at Severus, shaking his head. He looked toward the wolf. "Hermione?"
Hermione opened one eye and gave Regulus the side-eye.
"Come talk to me, yeah?" Regulus invited, hand out.
Hermione looked up to Tobias, her face a question.
The vampire nodded.
Hermione stood and padded over to Regulus and sat down.
"Hey," Regulus said. He unwrapped a package to expose some of Hermione's favourite indulgences: pear snaps—they looked like small pale green liquorice snaps and bounced around just the same, but unlike the original were sans the liquorice flavour.
Hermione perked and snapped at one that was trying to escape the paper parcel, her teeth clicking on it as she chewed it to death.
Regulus laughed at the wolfy antics and gave her another. It spronged off his hand, and she snapped at it with a loud click.
A dark shape flew out of the parcel, and Hermione chomped on it with gusto, tail wagging.
Suddenly there was a shrill scream, and Hermione spat something out of her mouth as it enlarged and reformed in a bleeding form of a bright blonde female with loud red spectacles and obnoxiously bright dress robes.
"Siennah, come," Tobias said, and she bounded over to him, tail tucked. The vampire stared at the woman on the floor, nostrils flaring as he scented her blood.
"I think that's Rita Skeeter!" one of the Aurors exclaimed.
Quibbler Headline:
Rita Skeeter, Rising Star of the Daily Prophet, Found Guilty of Unregistered Animagery as a Beetle!
Owner of Daily Prophet Denies Knowledge!
"So, he's a vampire?" Regulus asked quietly as Tobias drew his hand away from Severus' head.
Severus was laying in a deep sleep on the infirmary bed.
The vampire's hand was glowing.
"No, child," Tobias said. "He is the child of a vampire and a human woman—which should not be possible or viable. A vampire's biology requires their mate to produce an offspring that is not Turned. Otherwise, there is no shared blood between them, and the foetus perishes."
"Then how is this even possible?"
"I am not sure, child," Tobias said honestly. "I have no memory of lying with a woman, least of all her—but I do remember her as a very sequestered witch from a charity ball. Kind. Pleasant. Withdrawn. Eileen does not feel like the same person. This person—who somehow bore me a son—is alien to me."
"You seem strangely interested in the stories of vampires, child," Tobias said, his expression curious but wary.
"Severus is my friend," Regulus said quietly. "He's—helped me through a lot of disagreements with my brother. He and Hermione both. And father always told me that vampires were a species to be wary of lest we get on their bad side."
Tobias snorted. "That applies to any creature or being, mortal or not. What is the phrase—be careful who you piss off lest you be pissed on."
Hermione whuffed, leaning against Tobias' leg in supplication for more pets.
Tobias' gaze softened as he ran his talons through her fur, giving her the desired scritches she desired.
"Is there a cure for her—?" Regulus asked.
Tobias' eyes narrowed, but then he realised that Regulus wasn't being rude, he was simply ignorant of his familiar's true nature.
"There is no cure for what Siennah is," Tobias said. "She is my wolf. It is what she was born to be."
"But the werewolf—"
"Was merely a catalyst," Tobias explained. "It triggered her true immune system to accelerate her transformation to deal with the curse of lycanthropy. What she is is a wolf. Her human shape was but a cocoon, waiting for the right time."
"Erm," Regulus said. "She's a bit big for a wolf."
Tobias smiled. "She is a Sanguinarian. A heart wolf. They are born seeking to find the ones they are the other part of their soul, their heart—they complete them. They have partnered with my species since a time when the Dark was a far more vast and pervasive thing. When mortals huddled by fires, frantic to never let them go out. She shares her bounty with myself and my Triumvirate. Her experiences of the mortal world as it is now helps us remember it. Ours helps her understand what is at stake for failure to protect our species."
"Severus isn't normally afraid of animals," Regulus said.
"Being almost killed by a werewolf has probably affected him more than he realised," Tobias said. "I have eased the compulsion, but he will have to deal with his fears on his own or they will never be conquered. They will devour him."
Regulus thought of something. "I think—"
Tobias' eyes narrowed as he stared at Regulus.
"I think you should talk to my father," Regulus said. "He knows the old families better than anyone—I have a feeling it would know if—"
"If?" Tobias said, his eyebrow arched.
Regulus grimaced. "Maybe it wasn't Eileen Prince you met at that charity. Maybe it was her servant. The old families used to use proxies—in case they were poisoned or outright murdered. If they thought you wealthy—they could take the child, claim it as yours, and use it to force you into an inheritance or—hush money."
"It is strange," Tobias said thoughtfully. "Despite all of our politics, mortals dare to tread in places that the Sang do not. We would never involve a child—an innocent—into the schemes of the adult world. My kind learned long ago that a child is to be cherished as the gift it is to our people. Childhood is the ultimate gift. It is forbidden to hurt a child intentionally. To use one as a device for financial gain—"
Regulus shook his head. "I think you are falling into a trap they want you to be in," he said. "You're thinking too hard about the child being hurt. Instead of what matters more in this case."
"What could be more valuable than a child?"
Regulus smiled. "You said a child could only be conceived by your mate. Maybe she's still out there."
Tobias' eyes widened, his eyes glowing. He turned his head down to look at Hermione. "You have a good choice in friends, Siennah." He turned back to Regulus. "I would very much like to speak with your father."
Severus watched as the giant wolf Regulus said was Hermione lay on her side as two playful Kneazle kittens tumbled on the wolf mountain. She seemed utterly unconcerned as they bounded up on side of her and jumped off the other, tails a bottlebrush of excitement as they chased each other in a frenzy
The two parents lay together nearby with tags proudly naming them Everard and Sasia, but their two kittens were, as of yet, unnamed.
The Black household was a bit sombre in colouring, taking after muted shades of grey rather than colour, but the house Kneazles came in bright, obnoxious colours of bright royal purple, deep blue, garnet red, and tabby orange—somehow mixed together in a way that worked.
One kitten was flopped on Hermione's muzzle, tuckered out and too bothered to take the effort to move. The other was nestled between her ears. Every so often Hermione's ear would flick, and the kitten's paw would reflexively bat at it.
Severus tried to deal with his triggered fear of all that was lupine, but it was pretty hard.
Bloody Lupin had seen to that. Regulus was trying to play intermediary, but it was still hard. It was helping that a werewolf has certain traits that Hermione didn't have, well, other than the obvious not be an infectious, violent, rampaging beast—
She had a full, lupine tail and a long, broad muzzle—not the shortened werewolf muzzle and tufted tail.
She was also a different colour than Lupin—which helped. She was a deep amber, reddish sienna brown, looking like sunlight through the branches falling down to leaves on the forest ground. She was actually quite—beautiful.
But when she lay on her back on the floor, paws up, her teeth bared as she snoozed, he had to stop staring at those teeth.
Her canines were considerably longer than that of a "natural" wolf. Not, say, sabretooth long, but definitely a noticeable feature of threat both inside and out of her mouth.
A side-effect, Regulus said, that he had learned was a result of being bound in symbiosis with her vampire counterparts for far longer than mortals had had civilization—or vampires for that matter.
It was odd that Regulus was more at ease with talking to Severus' real father than he was—but Regulus had always been more socially skilled than he was. Severus was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact his father wasn't his father or that his father wasn't the father he thought was his fa—bloody hell, that was confusing.
A scream and pounding came from upstairs, and Hermione jolted to alertness, shedding her kitten entourage as one would water after a dip. The kittens promptly darted into hiding under the settee, and Hermione's lips pulled back from her teeth, her fangs exposed in obvious threat.
"LET ME OUT OF HERE!" Sirius' voice yelled as the pounding continued.
Severus wondered if the "house arrest" was going to do anyone any favours. No one seemed to be happy about it, least of all Sirius Black.
Suddenly, Hermione shoved her rump into him, backing him into the wall and china cabinet so abruptly that he couldn't even react one way or another.
Walburga was storming up the stairs with Orion as his father stood in the archway of the sitting room, his arms crossed over his chest as he calmly sipped his tea as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
He was nothing like the Tobias he knew.
Not even in the slightest.
Suddenly, Hermione leapt, snarling viciously, and she savaged the air as if there was something there. She thrashed around, her teeth grasping as her claws slashed, and blood dripped on the floor.
There was—something—there.
There was a flash of green—
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
"BOMBARDA MAXIMA!"
Hermione yelped, and she fell to the ground with a resounding crash as the wall was blasted open, and two shades fled under—something.
They pulled whatever it was over them as they made a run for it.
A crowd of shocked Muggles had gathered outside, gasping and pointing in confusion and horror, the enchantments on the House of Black having been decimated from the inside.
Tobias's eyes glowed crimson as he bit his hand pooled blood on the floor, drew it into a symbol with his fingers and slammed his hand down in the middle of it with a call of power.
"Abscondo," he hissed.
A blast of cold power blew outward, and the Muggles outside blinked dumbly, shook their heads, and then simply continued on as if nothing was amiss.
"Repair the wall," Tobias commanded. "I will not be able to stave off this entire area for long."
Severus stared at Hermione's lifeless body with a stone in his gut.
"REPAIR THE WALL!" Tobias snapped.
Severus startled and pulled his wand, frantically trying to remember the right spell. "Reparo," he stammered, then again as he regained focus. Regulus joined him. Orion. Walburga—
The blasted corridor righted itself as the wall moved back into place as the burning rubble put itself out.
As the last of the bricks went back in place, and Orion rewove the enchantments that protected his home from being seen, Tobias collapsed in a heap next to his wolf, his hand curled around her paw as his body went still.
"Mea lupa," Tobias whispered as his crimson eyes went dark. "You did very well." His hand twitched above her paw and went slack.
Teenage Fugitives James Potter and Sirius Black Disappear From House Arrest!
Scions of the great houses of Black and Potter disappear after James Potter supposedly broke into the House of Black and busted his best mate, Sirius Black, out of house arrest. The incident left the home temporarily exposed to Muggles.
An unknown guest at the House of Black bought them enough time to conceal themselves before the Statute of Secrecy was breached beyond repair at a high cost. That guest has been sequestered away with no word of their survival or tragic end.
Just how these eldest sons of the Black and Potter families managed to break free of very complicated wards is currently unknown.
Their fellow mates, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, who were also under scrutiny of the Wizengamot are reportedly in Auror custody at this time.
We will bring you more news on this breaking story as it becomes available to us.
Severus lay his head down on the much-abused pillow he was strangle-holding. His world was spinning wildly inside his head and out, and now, not only had Hermione saved him from Lupin, but she'd taken a killing curse.
And his father—
His REAL father—
Used his power to obscure the Black family home long enough for repairs and spells were put back in place to keep it secret. All while damaged from the shock of having his familiar murdered right in front of him.
And now his real father lay in the earth with his beloved familiar.
Buried.
Gone.
Two men came to collect his father and Hermione.
One he knew—Sanguini from Slughorn's dinners.
The other had shorter black hair that curled just enough to be almost unruly. Sanguini cradled Tobias in his arms, hoisting him up as if he weighed nothing at all, and the other picked up Hermione, draping the huge wolf over his shoulder like an oversized sack of potatoes. It would have been comical had the situation not been so utterly depressing.
And when he saw them, he noticed trails of crimson going down their faces like tears.
When they arrived back at the Nation, Orion came too, and Regulus, of course, wanted to be there for Severus, which Severus appreciated even in his boggled, emotionally tortured state.
They followed behind the two elder vampires and finally found themselves deep within the heart of the Undead Nation—a sprawling either gigantic city or small country that no one knew about. While some of it was above ground, much more was below, and some expanded deep under the ocean, far from where human life would find liveable since they still breathed.
Even so, the main areas above greatly resembled various forms of human architecture spanning many ages. Places that undoubtedly served to host guests to the nation.
But where they were going now, Severus was unsure. Wherever it was, it was far from everything, and as they walked giant hounds of flame and shadow flanked them, keeping their eyes on them.
The deeper they went, the more uneasy Severus became, but Regulus, too, seemed more than a bit unnerved—especially when the dark hounds glowered at them, obviously unimpressed by their intruding in places they were not normally welcome.
They reached an area that seemed like a garden deep within the earth. Phosphorescent plants illuminated the area, and had it not been obviously underground from their trip, it would have seemed like some mystical place above ground.
Greater Leys buzzed around them, travelling naturally on the way from one area to the next, and they were so powerful that Severus' hair stood on end in places as if a lightning strike was imminent.
With a whisper of magic, they dug a great hole in the ground, moving the earth and stone aside. Both elder vampires seemed heavy, weary.
Orion stepped up and then knelt at their feet, bending his head to the side in a gesture Severus did not expect. From the look on Regulus' face, neither did he.
"I am sorry, My lords Rada, Sanguini," Orion said. "I have failed you and Lord Tobias. I am willing to accept my punishment for my failure as seneschal."
Seneschal? Severus stared at Regulus and gave him expressive I-have-no-idea eyebrows.
"It is not you who failed, child," Sanguini said as he lay Tobias in the hole and helped Rada move Hermione's body to lay beside him. They lay them together just as they had fallen—curled, touching.
"Unfortunately, I think this means your elder son is most definitely out of a job," Rada said.
Orion grimaced. "I do not think any job is appropriate for him at this point."
"We had planned a great ado for your Turning," Rada said. "Alas it will have to wait to see if you have a line in which to belong."
Orion sighed, nodding. "It has been an honour, my lords."
"Your family has served our Lines for generations," Sanguini said. "We do not fault you for the dysfunction of your son. We can only hope your younger son has more sense."
Orion cast a glance at Regulus. "He does seem to, my lords."
"Are you willing to do what needs to be done, child?" Rada asked.
Severus found it awkward that anyone was calling Orion Black a child—so, too, did Regulus judging by his rather confused expression.
"I am, Lord Rada," Orion said firmly. "The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black remains at your service. At last the part of it that matters."
Sanguini snorted. "Cygnus is of no worth," he said. "Both he and his line are doomed to fail, one way or another."
"My Lords?" Orion asked.
"Watch over our Lines until this situation is resolved," Rada said.
"Of course, Lord Rada," Orion said with a bow. "It shall be done."
Sanguini and Rada bit their wrists and held them out.
Orion accepted the offering and drank from both. His eyes glowed brightly as he stood up.
"Should violence be required?" Orion asked.
"Kill them," Sanguini said coldly.
"And set the Lethifolds upon their corpses," Rada added grimly.
The man bowed deeply. "As you will, my lords," Orion said, not even a pause for a brief hesitation.
Sanguini and Rada stepped into the open grave, placed themselves around the still body of Tobias and Hermione, and went utterly still as the earth swallowed up the grave completely.
"Child of Tobias," Orion said as he turned from where the Earth had swallowed them.
Severus startled.
"I will show you to your chambers," Orion said. "You are not to leave the Nation until it is deemed safe for you to do so."
"But—"
Orion Black was clearly so much more than he had initially appeared. Severus could feel his power and his loyalty as well as devotion to duty. He had the trust of his father and his father's allies.
When Orion looked at him, it was like being stared down by a butler that knew his family for the last thousand years down to the first founder to the latest baby—and he gave Severus a withering glare that somehow managed to be respectful, yet he was as every bit as intimidating as a T-Rex eyeballing his supper.
"It is not safe for you outside of the Nation, Severus," Orion said. "It would be unconscionable for me to allow you to walk to your death when those that have done their avid best to murder your father, his familiar, and perhaps his entire Coalition in one blow are still out there. You have no idea how much damage this one event has done to the Nation. If Lord Tobias does not rise again, the entire Council will be in chaos. If his familiar does not rise—he will be wounded eternally. There are those who will be hoping for such an outcome. And should you walk out to your death on my watch, it will not just be you who ends up dead, it will be my head as well. I highly recommend you stay here where it is safe. We will have tutors brought to you here in the Nation to continue your education. Your father made arrangements for my son to be allowed to study and stay with you here just in case—something happened. Now, if you will please follow me?"
Severus grimaced and then jerked a nod, following. After all that had happened—he couldn't afford to make yet another stupid mistake.
Regulus, for once, appeared to be utterly gobsmacked and offered not so much as a word of commentary as he followed silently beside him.
When the doors closed to the outside, Orion seemed to shed about fifty years worth of stress. He let out a sigh, summoned a tea service, and drank about five cups in rapid succession before he was able to form a more coherent sentence of explanation to his clearly baffled son.
"A senechal?" Regulus asked. "How?"
"I, like my father before me," Orion said, "and his father before him—it has been the duty of the House of Black to watch over the mortal affairs of the Lines of Tobias, Sanguini, and Rada. When the time comes for me to 'retire' I would be given the option to Turn along with your lady mother, and we would retreat from the mortal world and leave you in my place. It would have been Sirius, but— we have long since realised he is not fit for the duty."
"But—you serve vampires?"
Orion snorted. "Where do you think our vast fortune comes from? The Void? We have always been well provided for and compensated handsomely for our service. It is our honour and duty to serve the Triumvirate. Each generation of Blacks is allowed to be mortal until an heir has grown to adulthood, and then they 'retire' into antiquity as if they had simply passed away."
"But what of Uncle Cygnus? Does Mum know?"
Orion shook his head. "Cygnus is a pontificating idiot who believes he knows the Black family better than anyone. He is a fool. And your mum has known since the day she married me. Had she proven unable to handle it, I would have Obliviated our romance, and I would have moved on."
"But you love her!" Regulus objected.
"And it is because of that that I gave her a choice and would have respected her decision," Orion said.
Regulus withered under his father's glare.
"Until your brother is found and dealt with along with his disappearing friend, you are to remain here in the Nation. It is the only place where you both will be safe in case they come back looking to deal with any witnesses.
"But Sirius—"
"Is DEAD," Orion stated firmly. "One way or another, he will meet that fate. He cast the Killing Curse upon the bonded familiar of the Lord of his Line. Even if he were to be brought before the Wizengamot, his fate would be the same—only they would give him to the Dementors first and ensure he had no soul left to meet Hades."
Severus felt a pang of sympathy for Regulus. He'd always had a soft spot for his older brother. He'd always hoped that he and Sirius would one day make up and be as close as they had been as young children. Sirius, however, had proven absolutely hellbent on renouncing everything the Black family stood for—which had ironically sealed his fate with the Nation even more solidly.
"I need you both to stay here—" Orion said seriously. "Here, I can keep you safe."
"Yes, Father," Regulus said.
Orion turned to look Severus in the eyes.
Severus nodded. "I will stay here."
Orion sighed heavily. "Good."
Violent Muggle Murders Increasing All Across Britain
Minister For Magic Asks All To Remain Vigilant
Murder Spree No Long Limited to Muggles
Half-bloods and Muggleborns Targeted
Entire Families Brutally Slaughtered!
Minerva McGonagall Formally Appointed Hogwarts Headmistress In Wake of Albus Dumbledore's Trial
Albus Dumbledore Murdered In Holding Cell By Agents of the Dark Lord
Potter Family Vehemently Denies Only Son James Potter Is a Death Eater After Traces Found On Murder Victim Lead Directly to Him!
Noble and Most Ancient House of Black Disowns Scion Sirius Black For Bringing Dishonour to Family
Hogwarts Student Lily Evans Catatonic After Going Home to Find Family Murdered By Death Eaters!
Her Last Words: "My Friends Killed My Parents!"
Sirius listened to the agonised screams of the people being tortured and grimaced behind his mask. It never got any easier, but it was the only option James and he had left if they were to survive.
Having cast an Unforgivable at the giant wolf had sealed his fate. He had seen it—
Seen it in the eyes of the man talking to his father.
He'd thought it was Snivellus—
But it wasn't.
Because Snivellus had been behind the wolf.
And the man's eyes had glowed with an inhuman malice the moment the wolf had gone down—
He'd just wanted to get away.
They'd wanted to get back to Hogwarts where Dumbledore could make it all go away just like he always had—
But Dumbledore wasn't there anymore.
He was being brought up on charges for letting Remus go to school at Hogwarts—endangering his fellow students.
It wasn't fair.
It wasn't RIGHT!
The moment they saw McGonagall was in the high office, they knew they were both screwed.
She'd always been "fair" and followed the rules—even if it meant docking points from her own house.
Then, when they realised Dumbledore was in a Ministry holding cell awaiting trial, he was murdered by Death Eaters.
They realised the only winning side was with the Dark Lord.
So they joined—humbling themselves before the man that had managed to beat Dumbledore.
They'd passed his "tests" only to realise it just kept getting worse.
They'd had to kill Lily's parents. That was their test.
Desperate to save themselves, they had done as they were told. Lily always complained about them, anyway. Especially Petunia.
But it hadn't gone over well at all.
Now Lily was catatonic at Mungos, babbling nonsense and drooling.
He knew—they'd seen her.
If they'd still had James' cloak, they could have hidden themselves away, but that stupid wolf had torn it just enough for the magic to trickle away. It got them out of his family home and then became nothing more than a wad of useless fabric.
And the Potters weren't likely going to welcome home the ones who destroyed their family heirloom. Especially since his father had submitted his memories to the Aurors. The Potters would want to see the cloak undamaged to prove that the memories had been tampered with. That their son wasn't a Death Eater. That Sirius hadn't used an Unforgivable and blown out a wall in his family's home to escape—
But they had.
So here they were, forced to live a life as Death Eaters in order to stay ahead of the Hit Wizards that would be coming for them—or rather had. Did.
Their bones already lined the dungeons below them—one of Abraxas' moments of forethought. His horrendous cruelty was renowned—and even Sirius knew it was far worse than anything he'd ever accused his father of.
And what he'd said about his father—
It wasn't even remotely true. It was all a story he'd made up to convince his Gryffindor friends that he was rebelling against a tainted, Slytherin pureblood family.
Those stories about Abraxas, however, didn't begin to touch on the man's sadism and depravity. Not even close. He was far, far worse than Sirius had ever imagined. The perfect torturer for the Dark Lord's needs and even more vast cruelty.
So, here he was. Stuck in a ditch of his own making. Realising the multitudes of sins he had committed for himself—to remake himself a hero only to fall in with the very opposite.
And James?
He was forced to be Bella's little sex toy to keep his value.
The very moment James lost that value, Sirius had no doubt whatsoever that bloody Bellatrix would throw him to the werewolves—quite accidentally, of course.
And the Dark Lord deliberately kept them hungry before the full moon so they would rampage all the greater.
So even if he did use his Animagus form—they'd still eat him.
And the Dark Lord did not want his knights turning into dirty, filthy animals. If they did, they would be shown the exact same accommodations as the werewolves. And he knew they were Animagi—as did all of those who paid attention to the tabloids.
Because they had tried to keep it so secret, everyone knew.
Because they had believed themselves so clever—everyone made it their job to remind him of just how stupid they had been.
And Bellatrix loved to make him smear his own shite on himself because now he was just as bad as the ones he'd claimed he'd never be like.
Not ever.
He looked out the window and saw the moon full and bright over the estate. The grass looked like water. He thought of Moony, and remembered he didn't even have that friendship anymore. Even if he could get out of this place, Remus knew he'd tried to use him as a murder weapon. No matter the reason he could have made up or even meant, Remus would never forgive him for that.
And Peter had been taken by Hit Wizards.
There was only himself and James left now.
And he knew there would be no help from the other non-humans in this sodding hellhole.
Because he saw what he'd faced when he'd cursed that wolf—
He saw those same crimson eyes staring back at him when the Dark Lord made them beat and torture each other to remind each other they were nothing without him.
Vampires.
He'd used the killing curse on a vampire's familiar, and if the kind of people his father spoke with meant anything at all, it had not been a common vampire like the ones grovelling at the Dark Lord's feet hoping for a better life.
He'd killed the familiar of some high-ranking vampire.
No matter where he went, he was going to die. It was just a matter of when and how.
He turned and opened the door to the wardrobe.
It took him a moment to realise the glint of movement. The shine of moonlight on teeth.
He had a moment of clarity as he realised Bellatrix' practice with using extension charms on objects had finally made itself useful.
A werewolf leapt out of the wardrobe and tore him to pieces until he was only a splatter on the floor.
Severus,
Something really weird is going on at the house. Father has a bunch of strange people making themselves at home here. And all of them seem as crazy as my Cissy's elder sister, Bellatrix.
Not looking forward to having her as a sister-in-law, but I digress.
Father is keeping someone sequestered down in the dungeons. It used to be secret. I didn't know about it, I swear. But Bellatrix found her and has taken to torturing her for fun. Calls her a blood traitor. I need to get her out of there. They're going to kill her. The things they talk about. The things they want to do to her. Someone has to stop these people! I can't do it myself. Father has me locked in the wards. He wants to present me to this "Dark Lord" as a representative of the Malfoy family. Potter is with him—
Potter!
I saw Black with him too. Sirius, that is.
He—
Bellatrix set him up with a werewolf hidden in his wardrobe. The psychotic bitch actually thought it was funny.
There was blood everywhere—
It ATE him, Severus.
I never truly felt safe in my father's home, but now it's so much worse.
This letter has been dipped into the wards. I hope you can find someone to put an end to this insanity before even more people die—and before my father kills my mother.
L
Orion looked up from reading the letter in his hands and sighed. "You did well in bringing this to me. I will take care of it."
"Father, I think Lucius is in grave danger," Regulus said worriedly. "He mentions his mother but—"
"He's due to wed Narcissa Black," Severus said.
Orion steepled his fingers. "Does he wish to?"
Both Severus and Regulus blinked. "We think so?"
"I find myself wondering what degree of depravity Abraxas has lowered himself to," Orion admitted, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. "Forcing one's son into a marriage is not exactly unusual for the Malfoy family."
"As I understand it, they do actually care for each other," Severus offered.
Orion closed his eyes, seemingly in thought. Then he nodded. "Very well, extra care will be taken to ensure we get the victims out first. We have a number of vampires with the Dark Lord posing as sycophants hoping to gain freedom from their masters. It will be good to let them off their leashes and allow them to do what they were sent there for."
"What would that be, Father?" Regulus asked.
"To take out those that threaten the Nation before they become an even greater problem."
Severus stared into the cell of his "mum" and shook his head. Day by day, she looked less and less like the woman he thought he knew, but he wasn't sure if it was physical or just his opinion of her.
For she was not his mother.
Not truly.
His mum was Eileen Prince, and this woman he had thought was—was actually the sworn servant of the Prince family.
Sworn to take care of the bastard son of Tobias until they could properly murder him and put him in the inheritance.
There was so much he didn't know.
He hadn't known his true father.
He didn't know his true mother—
And his best friend had been savaged by a werewolf and then taken a killing curse for him.
Lily was in a catatonic state after having her entire family slaughtered by Death Eaters—two of them being Potter and Black.
What was he to think?
He'd once been hoping Lily would get hers for her part in tipping Hermione off about exactly where to find him—thinking that Hermione deserved to be pranked.
But this—
No, even Lily didn't deserve to have her entire family slaughtered. Even if Petunia had been an abusive little bint from day one.
Mind, Regulus was going through his own epiphanies having found out his family was actually serving three ancient lines of vampires since time immemorial.
That was a lot for Regulus to take in even without the "almost got your best friend murdered, oh wait, she actually was murdered" factor. Oh, and the "your real father just sacrificed himself in order to preserve the secrecy of the magical world" too.
"Did the harlot finally die along with that fucking leech?"
It was the voice he'd come to know as his mum's, but she had never before sounded so bitter. If anything, she'd always seemed utterly meek and subservient. A helpless victim. That too, apparently, had been all a farce.
"She was my friend," Severus said. "My best friend."
"Well, you surely showed her, didn't you?" his "mum" said, a cruel smile on her face.
"What do you even get out of this?" Severus asked.
"I serve the great Prince family," the woman said stoutly. "Nothing else matters."
"I am also of that family," Severus said, his teeth gritting together.
"A half-blood freak," the woman hissed. "Not even worth the time to grow you to take the leech's fortunes."
"You didn't even know he was a vampire, did you?" Severus asked. "He just kept on not dying, and your service to keep me alive kept getting longer and longer. You figured he was in a hole somewhere, hiding—until you saw him at the trial, and then all your plotting, your duty came crashing down all around you."
"It wouldn't matter if he died," the woman spat. "And now he is. I can at least take comfort in that. That and that Lord Malfoy will ensure your pathetic mum will die as the disgusting leech lover she is."
Severus had a serene, rather cruel smile on his face.
"What are you smiling about, boy?"
Severus flicked his eyes over to where a new figure walked in from the connecting room. A pale woman with long black hair in tangles and numerous half-healed wounds down her body. She was gaunt, underfed, and had obviously been tortured in a way that ensured she survived long enough to be tortured again and again.
The woman in the cell gasped.
"As the last remaining Prince on this Earth, Madeline Spent," the real Eileen Prince said. "I cast you out of the service of the Line of Prince. I curse your name and your family. I curse your blood. May your magic drain from your pores as you die a miserable failure."
"No! NO! I served the true line of Prince! I was dutiful!"
"They're all dead," Eileen said stonily. "Abraxas killed them all in front of me to torment me all the more in knowing what failures they were. Because of you. Because you couldn't manage to keep your bloody mouth shut as you swore to me you would."
"N-nuh. No! You're lying!"
"Unlike you, Madeline," Eileen said flatly. "I don't lie. You will go before the Council now, and I'm looking forward to seeing that."
As Eileen walked away, Severus' face darkened and Madeline screamed as her entire reason for everything crashed and burned all around her.
"Will she be—alright?" Severus asked hesitantly as the vampire healer adjusted a Muggle device to ensure his mum (the real one, for sure this time) had proper fluids returned to her as well as the right potions to rejuvenate her weakened magic.
"She will need time," the healer said. "If her mate was here, it would be considerably faster, but alas, that is not possible given the situation. The Lethifolds are doing what they can to soothe her pain, but since they are not hers, they can only do so much."
"Lethifolds?"
"The traditional gift that a vampire gives to his intended as proof of their prowess and worthiness," the healer said. "Once fully bonded, it protects them from offensive spells and helps syphon negative magic from their bodies—which would help to heal her wounds."
He walked over to the coffin-like bed on the far side of the room and pulled a small napkin-sized "cloth" off its meal. The small Lethifold made faint grating noises of protest as the vampire soothed it and brought it over to Severus' mum and placed it on her more obvious wound. It suckered onto her wound and radiated a strangely cold and warm energy.
"The babyfolds can be used for healing our non-bonded patients," the vampire explained. "The adults care not for anyone but their bonded ones. They debride the wounds, encourage healthy tissue to form, and prevent scarring. Their saliva is a natural anaesthetic. It is the best we can do until her mate arises."
The "if" was silent, but Severus knew it was all about if.
His mum, he realised, was a pureblood who had fallen in love with the ultimate bane of all things pure. A vampire. Not even human. She had him—and the family had decided that from her mistake, they would make his "uselessness" more profitable.
Then, they had given her to Abraxas to sequester in his dungeons—and most recently torture when he found out from Madeline's confession—that she had committed the ultimate sin.
That was the only relief in the story—Abraxas hadn't started with the torture until he realised that the Prince family had sanctioned a freak whelp with a leech for—money.
And that had alerted Lucius.
Severus sighed. He could only thank Lucius' buried better nature—his love for his fiancée —for inadvertently saving his real mum from death.
At least he was out of there when Orion had the place razed to the ground.
The Nation was allowing them to convalesce in peace and privacy in their lands, hidden from the public eye until they were recovered—mentally and physically from their ordeal.
Away from the intrusive media.
Away from the ever-blaming eyes of the Wizarding World.
And the bodies went to feed the Lethifolds who promptly had a few large clutches of babyfolds—the babyfolds currently being used to heal his mum.
Well, he supposed, at least there was some use for all of those Dark wizards and witches.
Whatever pity he might have felt sort of fled into the night after all he had gone through.
He and Regulus had decided that finishing their education within the Nation was far more appealing than going back to Hogwarts after all that had happened there. It was, ironically, safer.
With the Dark Lord rising having met a sticky end along with all of his knights, Severus could only hope that Wizarding Britain managed to piece itself together more peacefully than what had nearly turned it into a warzone.
Now, if he could only graduate—well, at least finish his NEWTs.
He could only hope, right?
Time passes…
Severus had just put flowers over his father's "grave" when suddenly the flowers moved.
A muzzle poked out, complete with bared shiny teeth.
Wuff, the great beast said as it clawed its way out of the earth. She shook herself off vigorously and then dug into the dirt with enthusiasm, sending dirt and clods, grass, and flowers flying in all directions.
She found those she had been sleeping with, and she licked their faces, tugged their arms in her mouth, and tail wagged.
Rrrrfff!
She let out a long, mournful howl, and then sat upon his father's still chest.
His taloned hand reached up and rubbed her scruff. "It is good that I do not breathe because you are sitting on my lungs right now," he admonished her gently as he sat up, giving the great wolf a hug and ruffle. His two companions rose with him, yawning.
"Good lupa," Rada said as he ruffled her fur.
Hermione wagged her tail happily.
Sanguini pulled on his magic and cleaned them all off, levitated them out of the grave, and then placed them back on the ground, sending the dirt back into the hole along with the poor displaced plants.
"Show off," Tobias said, giving his old compatriot a shove.
Sanguini smiled. "Good to see you, too, my old friend."
"Well, we did share a grave for—bother, how long has it been?"
"Five years," Severus said, staring in amazement.
"Oh, well," Sanguini commented. "A little beauty sleep to help that horribly pale complexion."
Tobias tched. "You're so insufferable."
"The best," Sanguini purred. He looked down at Siennah and ruffled her fur playfully. "Such a good wolf. Did you enjoy your five years of concentrated learning?"
Hermione rrrrfed, tail wagging, and a beam shot out from her tail, gifting him with a black and red silk robe with dragon brocade.
"Gods, you taught her fashion while we were sleeping?" Rada groaned.
"That and so much more," Sanguini said with a smile. "Why, what did you teach her?"
Siennah pounced Sanguini and pinned him down to the ground, tongue lolling merrily.
"Self-defence," Rada answered dryly.
"Wonderful, did you teach her daggers and swords as well as the quill?" Sanguini said, play wrestling with Hermione.
"That was me," Tobias said as he helped Sanguini up.
Hermione whuffed happily, she then turned to look at Severus. Her tail stilled, and she had a great look of concentration on her face. Or was it concern?
"Hermione—" Severus said, his voice a bare whisper. "I've missed you so much."
The wolf's lips pulled up in a lupine smile, and she pounced him mercilessly, shoving him into the ground as she rolled against him, smashing her body against him as if to turn him into a strudel.
Severus hugged the wolf against his body, crimson tears flowing down his face as he buried it into her fur. She licked them away with fastidious laps of her tongue. He shuddered, and claws emerged from his fingertips as he drew one across his neck.
Hermione languidly licked his offering as a heated blast of magic recognised each other.
"Time to get a Lethifold for her, my son," Tobias advised, giving his fellows "the look." "There will be no more bastard children in the Line of Tobias."
"Maybe there doesn't have to be," a small voice said as Eileen stepped out of the shadows, her eyes filled with both wonder and tears.
"Eileen—" Tobias whispered, his pale face somehow managing to become distinctly more so.
"It's really me—" she said. "Is it really you?"
Crimson tears flowed down Tobias' face as he scooped her up into his embrace and crushed her to him with a groan of half pain, despair, and joy mixed together in a cocktail of conflicting emotions.
"Looks like he will need to go fetch a Lethifold too," Sanguini murmured to Rada.
"Indeed," Rada said with a cheeky smile. "It's good to be back."
"It is slightly disturbing to see your father and mother buried together," Regulus said as he scratched his head.
"Does it help that they will come back?" Severus asked, idly scratching Hermione under the chin and soothing her ears.
"Only slightly," Regulus admitted. "Maybe slightly less in knowing that your mate is a giant wolf."
"Only part time," Severus said with a chuckle. "Thankfully not in our marriage bed."
"I'm never going to get vampire social structure down," Regulus complained. "Is she a witch, a vampire, or a wolf?"
Severus, feeling that Regulus' awkwardness was role reversal only a few years previous, replied, "All of the above. Put a check in the last box, otherwise you'll be listing what she is for the next week."
Hermione's tail wagged, a lupine smile on her muzzle. While Regulus couldn't hear it, Severus heard her warm laughter. She was enjoying throwing Regulus off balance for once.
He had to admit, being formally bound to her helped with his awkwardness like a shot of knowledge straight to the brain. Well, and the blood hunger. And the anguish—
And well, everything, really.
There was a thrum of power, and Hermione perked.
The Triumvirate was calling her.
She gave Severus a lick and whined.
"Go on, now," Severus said. "Go be the wolf you are."
Siennah tore off in the direction of Tobias' call, tail held high and proud.
"Does it bother you that you have to share her with your father and his Triumvirate?" Regulus asked.
Severus shook his head. "I can feel her—here." He pointed to his head. "And here." He placed his hand over his heart. "She gives the same to my father. To Sanguini. To Rada. I find I cannot—fault them for that comfort when I know how poignant it is. She is their familiar, and that will always be something special between them. Just as our mating bond is special between us."
"You're much more—pragmatic than I expected," Regulus observed.
Severus lifted one eyebrow.
"Let's face it," Regulus said. "You were very unaccepting of things outside your very rigid lines."
Severus sighed. "Well, I kind of had that beaten out of me through multiple acts of mental trauma."
"I wouldn't have wished that on you," Regulus said, "but I am happy that you are more satisfied with your life."
"What about you?" Severus asked. "Are you satisfied with your life?"
"Finding out your lifetime job is serving three vampire Lines that predate the magical world?" Regulus said with a huff. "I'm working on it, but—I think I'm seeing why father was always so mellow. Pureblood drama is nothing compared to vampire drama."
Severus laughed. "I suppose you're right. I think it helps me to know my real mother and father are actually in love—actually considerate of each other. I grew up thinking my mother was the victim of a Muggle abuser, but the reality was much stranger, yet somehow—erm, healthier."
"Once you got over the fact that your not-real mum was used to feed the clutch of babyfolds that helped heal your real mum?" Regulus suggested.
"Yeah," Severus agreed. "That. Things seemed pretty positive after I got to that point." He jerked his head with a sigh. "You'll be a good seneschal. You can finally use that honeyed tongue of yours for the benefit of actual good."
Regulus snorted. "Go blow yourself up brewing potions," he said with a huff.
"I am not Longbottom," Severus said with a smirk as he turned and swept the room.
"Git," Regulus muttered under his breath.
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Tobias walked into the Apothecary and smiled as his she-wolf was dutifully carrying a hundred and one parcels back and forth from the wrapping room to the owls that were waiting for their packages.
When Hermione saw him, she released her latest package to the vampire that was loading the owls, and she bounded over to him, tail high and ears perked.
"Salve, mea lupa," Tobias greeted warmly. "Are you helping or hindering this war against the post?"
"Helping," Santiago said from the lineup of owls. "Somehow she does better than any of us with hands."
Tobias chuckled. "That's mea lupa," he said with a smile. "She helps Eileen with the baking and somehow gets all the ingredients she needs before she even realises she needs them, and she's using a recipe."
"Sanguinarians are disturbingly able to multitask," Santiago said. "Did you need something, my lord?"
Tobias shook his head. "I am just here to check on mea lupa and my son to make sure neither of them have spontaneously combusted."
"Not this week, my lord," Santiago assured him.
Tobias chuckled as he gave his wolf a snack by drawing a claw over his neck and letting her lap at it. She tail wagged in appreciation before bounding off to carry more shipping parcels to Santiago."
Tobias smiled.
"I have not combusted," Severus said as he poked his head around the corner. "Walk through. There is nothing explosive at the moment but the wolf."
Tobias snorted and walked back. "I'll try not to light her fuse then."
As he walked back into the far room, it lit up with balloons and confetti as a magical banner of "Happy Birthday, Lord Tobias!" lit up in grand lights.
He immediately shot a glance at his familiar, who was wearing her shiniest crooked halo.
"Don't blame her," Eileen said as she snuck up on him from behind. "This was my doing."
Sanguini waved a celebratory flag as Rada set off a magical cracker.
"Though many wanted to help," Eileen said as she kissed him on the cheek.
Tobias slumped his shoulders and shook his head. "What am I going to do with you all?" he muttered.
Rada shoved a plate of bloodcake into his hands. "Eat and be merry."
"Try not to hurt yourself," Sanguini added.
Rrrrf! Siennah made her commentary as she tail-wagged, her mouth carrying the ribbon to a large present.
Tobias gingerly unwrapped the present, and it enlarged with a soft pop! There, in fine painted oils in the style of the old masters (or perhaps simply the style of the Sang) was a family portrait with the Triumvirate that included Tobias and Eileen, Severus, Rada and Sanguini, and his ever dutiful she-wolf, Siennah.
"Happy Birthday, my lord Tobias," Regulus said.
Tobias' normally stern expression softened as he gazed upon it. "You are forgiven for this obnoxious showing of birthday sentimentality—and somehow teaching my familiar how to shield her mind from me."
Hermione bowed her head, whining softly.
Tobias placed a kiss on her head between the ears. "I love you too, mea lupa."
Hermione's mouth opened, tongue lolling as her tail beat the floor with enthusiasm.
Life was looking pretty good.
Unlife was looking even better.
And they un-lived happily ever after.
A/N: Well, except for the majority of the Marauders, who most definitely did not live, let alone un-live.
And Madeline who manages to heal just enough to refeed all the babyfolds every day. She's definitely not having a good life.
A/N: In celebration of reaching 200 published stories on FF dot net, I offer a rare chance to suggest a monster-friendly HEA plot bunny. I can't guarantee it will be taken and run with, but someone's will be. The resulting story will be a Corvus-short but not a drabble.