Chapter 69, Our Last Summer

The summer passed far too quickly because, for the most part, it wasn't dreadful. Severus spent a lot of it with Heather and Raislen while they avoided planning their wedding. Both enjoyed their freedom, no longer being students, and did not wish to jump into the hassle of adult life as a married couple so soon. They spent most of that time traveling around the entire United Kingdom, exploring libraries.

Though it wasn't likely they would discover anything rare and fascinating, the hunt was fun nonetheless. Raislen invited Severus on a three week vacation to Greece with he and Heather, but Grandfather Prince refused to allow it, saying that he was too young to leave the country with friends unattended by family. As if he was bloody five years old or something. How Severus hated old man Prince with every fiber of his being, nearly as much as he hated Voldemort.

Heather laughed when he expressed as much whilst the three of them were on one of their day trips to a magical library tucked away on the shore at Brighton. Raislen gave her a chastising look for making noise in a sacred space. After all, it was practically a magical law, or at least a matter of respect, that one must be quiet in a library. Flushing, Heather clamped a hand over her mouth, dropping her eyes in silent apology. "A person has to work very hard to be a close second to Voldemort in the hatred department," she murmured after a moment in response to Severus. Severus nodded.

"But he toils away at it, a very hard worker indeed."

Raislen snickered. "To be as dour as you are, you are really quite funny, Kid."

"I do feel badly keeping you both from Greece, though," Severus admitted quietly. Though he was more than happy to have them spending the summer with him, a small part of him hated costing Raislen and Heather their vacation because of old man Prince.

Raislen shrugged wide shoulders in a gesture of dismissal. "Don't worry about it. We'll just go after you've started back at Hogwarts." Though he knew they had the right and that it wasn't fair to expect them to wait until he could go with them in two bloody years, Severus felt sad at the thought of his friends having a grand time seeing the Greek wonders while he was stuck at Hogwarts hating his life. Still, it wasn't their fault. As he had not yet improved at keeping what he thought from showing on his face, Heather and Raislen were able to easily read his sentiment.

"We shall send you so many detailed letters that you will feel as if you are there with us," Raislen promised.

"And we'll find you an amazing souvenir or two to help that experience as well," Heather added.

"Of course," Raislen said. "That's a given. We shall be shopping for ourselves, after all, and we'd never leave you out of that."

Severus felt his heart warming. It was good... reassuring even to know they would still be thinking of him while they were off enjoying the magic of Greece. "It is going to be so bloody strange at Hogwarts without the two of you," he complained glumly.

"And it will be odd in Greece without you," Raislen countered.

Severus nodded, unable to suppress a despondent sigh. It just seemed so unfair that he'd actually found close friends only to have to separate from them for his last two years of school. It had been sort of nice having older friends for many reasons, but now he was finally feeling the only drawback. Due to their two year age gap, Heather and Raislen were moving on into adult life without him. The advantages of their help against bullies and later their help escaping from Prince manor during the summers had made him feel important.

When he returned to Hogwarts, he would only have Regulus's social connections. If those connections allowed him to ever appear to be important in the eyes of Voldemort and those who followed him, it would provide only the satisfaction afforded by sweet revenge rather than the comforting familial bond of true close friendship. It was enough, though. Severus knew that he would never be able to fully recover from the loss of his father until that loss was avenged by the fact that Voldemort was no longer breathing.

No longer allowed to take away loved ones from anyone else. Never able to kill innocent people, Muggle or not. For the time being, though, he had this last summer with Heather and Raislen. Of course they would have future summers, but between those, there would be school years where things would change for Severus be it due to lessons with Dumbledore or hobnobbing with Death Eaters at Regulus's side. Either way, his small cozy social circle at Hogwarts was a thing of the past. He hated this, but was just as resigned to it and resolute in his goals for moving forward. No more distractions that could've distracted him right into changing his mind and letting it all go.

If he could've remained with Heather and Raislen, his life may have gone in an entirely different and even better direction. Would that be enough, though? If he did let it go, he knew there would be an empty well of unresolved loss deep inside even if it hid very deep down. The loss of Tobias and all the things that Voldemort got away with would live unresolved in him and that would be dangerous. He just knew it had to be put to rest. That summer, he began the process of separating the two sides of his social life in his mind.

The one with Heather and Raislen where he was his true authentic self was his safe retreat. The other, he was his sharp edged self, an archer with his eye on the goal of vengeance. He would be the best at everything he could be to get into the good graces of Voldemort, then take him down. He would balance those two facets of his life. For the next two years, he would have the summers with Heather and Raislen and the Hogwarts months for the rest. After school was over, he would have both, though not at the same time. He knew that Heather and Raislen did not wish to be a part of anything Death Eater related, even if it was all done in the name of taking Voldemort down. They liked to play it safe, and he couldn't and didn't hold it against them, because he knew he would have done the same if not for his need for vengeance.

If Tobias still lived, he would've stayed as far away from Death Eater activity as anyone. During that summer, he attempted to avoid thinking of what would be his new life upon returning to Hogwarts in the fall. A new life that would be entirely different than his old one without Heather and Raislen because it would be filled with lying to Regulus about long term goals and studying with Dumbledore instead of his friends.

He wanted to enjoy this summer and not think of any of that until he returned to Hogwarts, but the fall would slip into his thoughts unbidden to cast an unwanted shadow over a lovely summer afternoon in one of the libraries they were visiting or a summer night in Raislen's grandfather's swimming pool. Nearly a month before the next term was to begin, Raislen had been invited to visit his grandparents for a week. They lived in Castletown on the Isle of Man.

He'd asked Severus along and somehow Eileen was able to give her permission for him to go without old man Prince getting in the way! Severus found Castletown to be a magically fascinating place due to its rich and ancient history, so he was thrilled that Raislen's grandparents lived there. It gave them the opportunity to explore the place during the days, hunting for ancient hidden ruins. They didn't find much, but the hunt itself provided opportunities for exciting exploration. The castle from which the town drew its name was something the founders would've seen, and even older than Hogwarts! It had even once been a prison, which fascinated Severus.

"Some of the prisoners included a bishop and two newspaper editors," Raislen's grandfather had told them cheerfully on their first night in Castletown. "Though this sounds a bit random, both sorts are equally problematic," he added with a wink. Raislen had grinned, but Severus nodded gravely, for he could quite see how this was nothing but the truth. In the evenings once the sun set and it was too late to explore, they had the swimming pool to keep them entertained.

Raislen's grandfather WestCraven had once been a professional swimmer, even racing with the merpeople in a swimming sporting event called the Siren's Songs. Though he had retired, he kept a swimming pool on his back lawn just to keep his skills sharp. The pool was made entirely of shimmering water clear crystal.

It was one of the most magical things that Severus had ever seen. It put him in mind of Merlin somehow. It was something Merlin could've owned or at least something that the great druid should like quite a lot. Severus loved the freedom of moving in the water. There were few things better than the full body work out of swimming and the way it helped his mind to flow as freely as his body did in the water.

Each evening, he would swim laps and think about anything from new spells to craft to what he and Raislen would do the next day in the nearby town. From time to time an unwanted thought of the fall and its uncertainties would slip in, and he'd turn sharply in the water, literally trying to swim the thought away. Most times it worked too. Those swims were the last good workouts he was to have during his school years, for he and Regulus stopped playing on Dumbledore's stairs in the fall. It simply wasn't the same without Heather and Raislen. Nothing was.