A/N: It's been a long time since I've updated (nearly a year...) but it's not over yet. Four or five more chapters and we'll end with the new year at Hogwarts.
Chapter 14
In the end, Harry and Ginny insisted on keeping the children with them at Shell Cottage on Friday night.
"One overnight at the castle is enough, Dad. Seriously. Take the evening off and relax." Harry continued making the sandwich he'd been working on and added nonchalantly. "Maybe you could give Eloise a call."
Severus gave a noncommittal hum. He didn't admit that he'd already contacted her, nor that he very much liked Harry's suggestion.
"I'm sure I can find something to keep me busy at Hogwarts," he said. He watched Harry slice a tomato into a wedge too thick for a sandwich. This newest therapy – therapy involving knives and kitchen tasks – still made him nervous. "If you are certain."
"I got through last weekend just fine," answered Harry. "And they get into much more trouble with their cousins than they do alone. They'll be fine. We'll be fine."
"All right. I suppose I should check up on the preparations anyway." Severus picked up an apple and walked ahead of Harry to the porch. "Whipple has a new apprentice – Sparky – and Sparky plans to bring his younger brother and sister up to play with the children."
Harry was slowly making his way onto the porch, balancing a plate loaded with a lopsided sandwich.
"Baby house-elves?" he asked. "What do they wear? Flannels?"
Severus ignored him, mainly by force of habit. "I will report back to you with all the details about Snappy and Sassy once I meet them."
Harry grinned. "Please do."
"Eat. You have some Flooing to do still."
They ate in silence for a few minutes, and Harry managed to eat most of his sandwich before he voiced what was still on his mind.
"So, are you going to ask Eloise out on Friday?" he asked. "I bet she's like to see Hogwarts."
"I'm sure she would. And will – in time. Don't rush this, Harry."
Harry smiled and let it drop, but after another successful trip to The Nest and back, while Harry dropped heavily into the hammock for a much-needed nap, Severus settled at his writing desk and penned a note for Eloise. He sent it off by owl while Harry was still sleeping.
Eloise – I realise this is very late notice, but I'm unexpectedly free tomorrow evening and will be staying over at Hogwarts. Would you like that castle tour a week early? The castle will be nearly empty and the night sky is never so immense and clear as it is from the castle turrets on a clear summer night. If you are willing and able, we can meet in Hogsmeade at the Three Broomsticks at 6:30 Friday and walk over together. Dinner in the Great Hall – Severus/i
On Friday morning, while Harry swung in the hammock reading the Seventh Year Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook, Severus Flooed to Harry and Ginny's home for Harry's dress uniform.
He stepped out of the Floo into a ghost of the home he knew so well.
It was silent. Dark. Impeccably tidy. Molly had been here, fetching items the children needed, and had tidied up. But with no one here to undo her organization, the house felt sterile and lifeless.
He made his way upstairs to Harry and Ginny's bedroom and opened Harry's wardrobe. His uniforms were neatly hung on one side. There were two sets of formal robes among them – one in the traditional crimson the Aurors wore on duty and a second set in black with crimson piping in a more traditional cut. Fallen Aurors were traditionally buried in full crimson dress but wore the black when attending the funeral of one of their own.
Severus removed the black robes and regarded them critically. They'd be loose on Harry now, but there wasn't time for a fitting. He reached back in for black cape with the crimson lining then found Harry's best pair of boots.
The folded parchment inside the right boot drew his attention immediately, especially when he saw his name printed on the front in Harry's handwriting.
He frowned at the paper even as he unfolded it. What it Merin's name was Harry playing at leaving him hidden notes in a pair of dress boots he almost never wore?
Oh.
The letter was dated three years ago.
Dad – Wasn't sure you'd open a letter addressed to Dad, thinking it might be from one of my children to me. If you're reading this, you're in my bedroom and you've come to fetch my formal uniform. They wouldn't have Ginny do it, so I figure it will be you, and even if it isn't, this note will get to you in time.
So – no. Don't bury me in boots. Save them for one of the boys, though they'll probably be bigger and taller than me if they have any Weasley in them. Or fill them with dirt or stones and use them to prop open a door. Wherever I end up, I'm not going to need these boots, or these ridiculous robes and Merlin forbid I get stuck as a ghost – I'd much rather be barefoot or dressed in denims and trainers and my Gryffindor Quidditch t-shirt. You know the one - you and Ginny have tried to bin it so many times I keep it hidden at the back of my sock drawer rolled up inside an old sock Dobby gave me fourth year.
Thanks for doing this thing – this thing that must be killing you – but it's not the last thing you'll do for me. Take care of the boys when they're at Hogwarts, give them detentions when they need them, don't ever let them take advantage of you, and never let them forget you love them, even when they're sitting out a Quidditch match for having an arsenal of WWW products in their school trunks.
Tell them stories about me the History of Magic books won't have, that were never in The Prophet. Stories only you would know. And help Ginny move on. Tell her I'd have wanted her to.
Be there for Ginny and the boys. And let them be there for you.
You gave me back my childhood, Dad. You made me the man I am today. I measure my life in the time before that summer at Shell Cottage…and after.
Regards,
Harry
Severus held the letter, hand shaking, and stared at the boot from which he'd extracted it for a long while. Finally, he carefully folded it exactly the way it had been, with the scrawled Severus on the outside, and replaced it in the boot, pushing it toward the toe so it wasn't visible.
The meaning of the signature line was not lost on him. He had a drawer full of letters in his quarters at Hogwarts signed with those same words.
Harry would find the letter when he put on the boots for the funeral and he'd hide it away again, glad Severus hadn't seen it.
But he'd re-write it, update it, and put it back again for that what-if day in the future.
Severus' own letter was exactly where Harry would look first – in his writing desk in this personal quarters, beneath the shattered pair of spectacles Harry had been wearing on that fateful day when he'd collided with the post owl on the Quidditch pitch during his eighth year.
ooOOOoo
When he left Shell Cottage later that evening, Harry's robes and boots delivered without comment to the main floor bedroom, Harry and Ginny and the children were down at the seaside. Harry had managed the trip from the shore back to the house earlier in the day with only one-armed support from Severus, and with James and Al to help Lily back, Ginny assured him – very firmly – that they would manage just fine until he returned after breakfast the next morning for the children.
"I can send a Patronus if we have any trouble, Severus," Ginny had assured him. She'd shaken her head fondly at the expression on his face at her statement. "Yes, it has been a long time and yes, I can still conjure a messenger Patronus. Now go or I'll have it trample you when it finds you!"
He checked on the family one last time through the window on the porch, counted the children's heads as they splashed and played in the shallows, then reminded himself that Ginny alone, with the honed reflexes of a professional Quidditch player, was capable of wrangling the children without a wand.
They'd be fine. Harry would be fine.
He made it to the Three Broomsticks with only a few minutes to spare, and found Eloise already there, waiting outside the busy establishment.
She brightened when she saw him, and he bent to kiss her cheek in greeting, but she laughed and turned her head to graze his lips with hers instead.
She took his hand as they walked together down the high street.
Conversation was light and natural and sometimes they simply walked quietly, Severus pointing out the docks where the boats were kept for the first day of term with the first years, then the gates of Hogwarts with their winged boars as they approached.
"How is Harry?" she asked as Severus opened the gates.
"Good – better," he said after a moment's consideration. "He's made some important decisions this week, and his lungs are nearly healed. They started him on Floo travel, and he's finally seeing the Auror's mind healer."
"That's a big step," she acknowledged. The castle came into full view as they rounded a bend in the drive. "Oh. Oh wow."
She stopped to admire the castle, and Severus tried to look at it through her eyes, as someone who was seeing it for the very first time.
"It's beautiful on a moonlight night with snow on the ground," he offered, wishing he could see the castle as she was seeing it – as an adult, but for the first time.
"It's beautiful now," she said, gazing up at the turrets and towers. "Though I think I know your secret to staying so fit now.'
He smiled. "One hundred and forty-two staircases and only one that magically moves you upward." He squeezed her hand. "And thank you – though running after my grandchildren has as much to do with my physical condition as climbing stairs."
"Forbidden? Why is it forbidden?" she asked a few minutes later. They were approaching the castle stairs, and Severus had just pointed out the Quidditch Pitch and the Forbidden Forest.
"I've no idea," he quipped. "Might be the giant spiders, or the centaurs, or the poisonous plants."
"Ah. Point taken. I have an idea you're a frequent visitor then?"
He smiled. "Are you sure we didn't know each other in another life?"
"I'm sure I would have remembered," she said.
A few minutes later, as they stood side by side in the entrance hall, Eloise gazed wide-eyed at the grand staircase, the shimmering gem-filled hourglasses and the ornate marble floor.
"And this is a school?" she asked.
"You're like a first year," Severus teased as he took her arm and led her into the Great Hall.
ooOOOoo
The house elves had outdone themselves. Five course meal, a hundred candles floating over the head table, white linens and china, and all on a beautiful, clear evening with the stars just beginning to light up the sky through the magical ceiling. He'd not asked for anything special at all – just dinner in the Great Hall with a friend – and suspected that Harry had had a private Floo call with Minerva while Severus was on his morning walk along the shore.
He had to admit he wasn't complaining.
Eloise had taken it in stride, turning what could have been a strange and uncomfortable experience into something not too far from a private dinner for two on the porch of Shell Cottage with a single candle on the table beside a vase of daisies. Conversation had been easy, dinner delicious, and they'd walked it off with a tour of the castle, which ended in Severus' quarters.
And it was there that Severus had laid out his idea about the last task for the coming Triwizard tournament.
They'd settled on his sofa, each with a glass of wine, and he's told her about the tournament with its three tasks for the champions, and how he, as Headmaster of Hogwarts, would choose one of the tasks – the venue and the task itself – and that he wanted to hold the task completely inside the castle.
"Wouldn't the Hogwarts champion have an unfair advantage?" she asked.
"Yes – so erasing that advantage is critical. The playing field has to be as level as possible. And as there will be one champion from Hogwarts – probably a seventh year who's had years to learn the castle – and two who have been here for only a few weeks or months, the task must not give the one with more familiarity any greater advantage that the two with less."
Eloise considered this for a moment. "What type of task are you envisioning? I assume the tasks test the champion in different ways – valor, intelligence, loyalty – that sort of thing?"
"Exactly. The best tasks pair what they've learned in their years of magical education with their innate values and decision-making skills." He contemplated his wine glass for a moment, thinking about Harry and the diadem, Harry coming back to Hogwarts to find a needle in a haystack. He couldn't tell Eloise that particular story. Not without revealing secrets they didn't share outside their family.
But it was precisely Harry's search for the diadem that was inspiring his plan for the Hogwarts task. Something lost. Something hidden. And to find it, the champions would need the help of the castle's oldest residents – the ghosts.
"There must be places in the castle even the students don't know about," Eloise said, gazing at him over her wine glass. "Like these rooms?"
"If you are suggesting sending the champions on a quest to break into the headmasters' private quarters…."
She laughed. "Of course not. Are there hidden dungeons? Secret rooms only accessible by hidden tunnels?"
He smiled. "There are all of those things. There is a wing of rooms that hadn't been used for a century until we opened it for a single year – the year after Voldemort was vanquished. We housed the students who should have graduated that year there – those who returned, at least. It's been closed off since. There are chambers for the house elves, and storage rooms, and rooms below the dungeons that have been closed off for centuries. And yes, there are secret tunnels and hidden passages as well. The tunnels from the outside have all been closed – they are no longer stable."
The sabotage in Hogsmeade all those years ago when the tunnel had collapsed injuring six students – including Harry – har certainly been front-page news. But as much as it was imprinted in his memory, it didn't seem to resonate with Eloise. Not everyone spent most of their life at Hogwarts, or worrying about Harry Potter.
"I'm sure you'll come up with something fair and intriguing," she assured him.
"Well, when I do, I'd like you to test it," he said. "I was thinking of you and Hermione – one of Harry's friends, actually. One who knows very little about Hogwarts, and another who knows quite a lot."
"You already know what the task is, don't you?" she asked, eyes bright and curious.
"How do you do that?" he asked, shaking his head. How did she get inside his head so easily? Was he really that transparent? "But yes – I do. And if everything at home continues to go as well as it has been, I should have time in the next couple of weeks to put the rest of the pieces together."
"Excellent." Eloise stood and grinned at Severus. "And now, I'd like to see that Astronomy Tower we conveniently skipped on our tour."
"I've got my own Astronomy Tower right here," he said. He stood and took her hand, and a few minutes later he was pointing out the lake and the Forbidden Forest and the Quidditch pitch all over again from the Headmaster's walk. And then they were kissing under the summer stars, and for what felt like the first time in forever, Severus didn't worry about Harry.
ooOOOOoo
Saturday passed in a blur.
James and Al loved Hogwarts, and Lily, new to the "day with Papa Severus" experience, wasn't far behind them.
Sparky's little siblings Snappy and Sassy were aptly named. Snappy had one speed – full throttle – and Sassy could argue herself out of a richly-deserved detention. The children were enthralled by their new friends, neither much larger than a doll, and Hide and Seek took on a new life when the hider could disappear inside one of Severus' boots.
Watching them play, he wondered if Harry would be surprised to learn that house-elf children really did wear flannels.
Mercifully, the long play date was followed by a two-hour nap, and Severus returned his rooms nearly to rights before the children woke up with even more energy and enthusiasm. They took a walk down to visit Hagrid, where James proclaimed that Sassy could fit inside one of Hagrid's teacups, and Al requested that Hagrid hollow out a pumpkin this Halloween as he was going to hide inside and surprise Snappy.
After tea and rock cakes, which James and Al pocketed, no doubt for a future projectile war, they made their customary stop to see the trophies tucked away in the little room beside the Great Hall.
"James Potter!" I told you I was a Quidditch Star!" exclaimed Jamie, nose pressed up against the glass of the case.
"And here's Dad – look! His Order of Merlin!" exclaimed Al.
It was the same every time they visited – the unbridled joy of finding names they recognized in these venerable halls.
"Why is it here?" Al asked earnestly. He pretended to polish the medal through the glass. "Why doesn't Dad keep it at home with mum's trophies?"
"I suppose because he got it for things he did right here at Hogwarts," Severus replied, as he always did.
"Like kill Voldemort," James said.
And Severus, a sleeping Lily on his shoulder, froze.
Foldedmark?" repeated Al. "Dad didn't kill anyone, Jamie! Right, Papa?"
He did!" exclaimed James. "Rose told me. But it's a secret – Aunt Hermione told her not to read adult books and she'd get in big big big trouble if anyone knew – and…and…."
He sputtered and stopped, realising his mistake. "But he was BAD!" he said in one final spurt. "He was a really really bad man!"
Al was crying now, and James scowling, and Lily was making the mewling noises she made just before waking.
He hated to do it – he really did – but he was going to have to have reinforcements to get through this worst-case-scenario they'd hoped would never happen but had long planned for.
"We are going up to my quarters so I can put Lily to bed," Severus said to the scowling, sobbing boys. "And then we are going to sit down with hot chocolate and Aunt Hermione is going to Floo in and help you understand."
"But Rose will get in trouble!" howled James as he followed Severus and Al up the stairway.
Al was still quietly sobbing ten minutes later when Hermione Granger-Weasley stepped out of the Floo in Severus' office.
"Go," she urged. "Minerva's waiting for you in her quarters – I'll Floo call when we're finished here."
Severus nodded – they'd all agreed that if this did happen – if the children discovered this piece of information before they were deemed old enough to understand – that it would be Hermione who would talk with them first. She'd already had the talk with Teddy, and Victoire. But there was something he had to know – wanted to know – before he left.
"How - ?"
She signed. "I only had a couple minutes with her – but…well, she read it. She actually managed to pull my revised edition of Hogwarts: A History off the shelf. It was in the new forward."
"She's a good reader," Jamie said, head swiveling from Hermione to Severus. "She read us a letter at the Burrow that Grandma Molly wrote to Grandpa Arthur even before they were married!"
"She liked Grandpa's long toes," Al supplied through a sob. "And his mole."
Alright then. He made a note to box up every book in the sitting room of Shell Cottage until Rose Weasley was eighteen years old.
Now Hermione was staring at Al, apparently horrified to learn that her four-year-old daughter had found- and read - a cache of Molly and Arthur's love letters.
"And I'm off," Severus said.
When he arrived at Minerva's door a few minutes later, she was waiting with a glass of scotch in hand. She pressed it at him and led him over to the sofa. "In seven years, that child will be at Hogwarts, Severus. You really might want to start thinking about joining me in retirement."
"Al just told us that she read one of Molly's love letters to Arthur aloud to them."
Minerva laughed. "They're children, Severus. Young children – and while most young children are not reading Hogwarts: A History at four years old, they do get into things."
"But we watch them. We would know."
"You watch them at the Burrow? Or do you assume that someone else is watching them when they're upstairs playing while you're having coffee and dessert?"
He stared at her. "Point taken," he said softly.
She laughed. "Severus – it has happened. The boys knowing isn't the end of the world. I didn't think it would go this long, to tell you the truth. Someone was bound to mention it in their presence eventually. You had a plan – a good plan. Hermione has written children's books about the final battle. They'll understand and it won't change what they think of their father a bit. Now drink your scotch and tell me more about this young woman you've been seeing."
"You're trying to distract me."
"Successfully, if the look on your face means anything."
"What look on my face?" he tried, but he couldn't hide a smile.
"Stop dawdling," she said.
"She's going to help me with the last task of the Triwizard Tournament," he said. "I'm going to propose having it inside the castle – I'd like Eloise and Hermione to do run-through, to test whether familiarity with the castle offers any advantage."
"Hogwash," said Minerva.
Hogwash? What? You don't like the idea?"
"Hogwash that that's the reason you brought your young lady to the castle, Severus. There isn't a more romantic place in the country than this castle – empty of students – on a summer night." She leaned closer. "You did take her to the Astronomy tower, did you not?"
"No. I most certainly did not."
She eyed him doubtfully.
"I took her upstairs – to the Headmaster's walk," he admitted.
"Ah. Of course you did." She smiled. "And you kissed her?"
He laughed. "Of course I kissed her – or better yet, she kissed me. I can never seem to get the first kiss in – it's a bit unnerving." He paused, staring at her oddly. "I had a long talk with Arthur about her the other night and kissing never came up."
"Because Arthur is happily married and still gets all the kissing he wants," she stated emphatically. "And he's hardly a romantic, Severus. He probably talks about computer chips and batteries when they're alone together. Allow me to live vicariously through you a bit." She paused, studying him a long moment. "And allow yourself to enjoy this, wherever it might go. We can't plan our lives, no matter how hard we try. The children will do unexpected things, find unexpected things, no matter how much planning goes into their upbringing. Allow yourself to embrace the unexpected. Harry has a whole army of friends and family who'll help get him over this hump, Severus. Don't let this one go because the timing is bad."
"You sound just like Arthur." He swirled the liquid in the glass, studying the play of light through the crystal.
"You should listen to him," she quipped. "He sounds very wise."
"I came down here because the children found out about Harry and Voldemort. Why are we talking about Eloise?"
"Harry and Voldemort are old news," Minerva said, waving her hand as if in dismissal. "But Severus kissing a woman on the Headmaster's walk?"
"You're trying to distract me again.
"And still doing a good job of it," she said, raising her glass.
All in all, it could have been worse, he thought later that evening. The children had fallen asleep on his bed after he'd explained – again – that Harry had not had to go to jail for killing Voldemort and had not been made king. It was only after James had fallen asleep and Al was just about to give in and close his eyes that the question had come that he'd been dreading.
"If Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione and Grandma and Grandpa and Mum were with Da in the Great Hall, where were you, Papa? Where were you when they had the battle?"
"Not far away," he answered, stroking Al's messy hair. "Not far away at all."
He imagined they'd want to talk about it in the morning, and with their Dad, who'd surely been visited by Hermione by now, and their mum, and Molly and Arthur. Harry facing evil, destroying evil, was something a child could justify, and hadn't he and Hermione emphasised how what Harry had done had helped free the entire Wizarding World?
But what Severus had done….
What Severus had done was something else entirely.