As he does, he draws on the Prince magic, weaving shadows between the links as he moves his wand and utters the spell. He and Harrison are sitting on the sofa. Harrison has his head leaned back, bright eyes closed wearily.
The elf is in the kitchen and Severus can smell golden syrup. Treacle tart, a-fucking-gain. Lupin growls softly beside him and Severus does what he has been longing to do since Lupin first lost his shit in the basement. He shoves the man into the wall with the point of his wand and leans forward to whisper fiercely in his ear.
The boy is a walking time bomb of untested, unverified, fucking impossibly mythic magic. Severus will not take any risks. He feels an unhelpful tug in his abdomen but ignores it. This is not about me. Lupin nods, and Severus steps back, watching the wolf carefully as he moves towards the boys. Severus almost snorts with laughter at the idea. The one thing this child does not have is regret. Severus has the feeling that he is seconds away from switching into parseltongue. Nothing more to talk about.
Severus only knows three other people who have such command of their voice and the magic inside it: Albus, Narcissa, and the Dark Lord. Oddly, Severus feels an absurd flicker of pride: my child is magically extraordinary. Lupin is interrupted by a vicious hiss and a pair of green eyes glaring at him. He just knows the boy is cursing in parseltongue and it is the most fucking annoying thing on the planet.
He wants to strangle the child. Severus is not sure he has any goodwill left. A runaway child, holding Albus at wandpoint, an encounter with Black, a fucking magically viable Mage trap and the revelation that his son can soul bond has taken it all away. He takes one, deep, steadying breath. Harrison shakes his head but the way his neck stiffens tells Severus he is listening.
Severus waits for a moment, to see if the hook is baited. Talk to me, you insolent magic tornado. Because no one can. Aha, I have your interest. They cannot turn against them. Of course, the boy dislikes me characterising his bond like this. The bond will see it is as disloyalty. Harrison stares at Lupin and then looks up at Severus. The boy does not sound frightened or concerned, just bleakly factual. Severus simply stares back. You have tried to protect him from the truth.
It does not work. Harrison stares at Theodore who looks stiff. Harrison raises his eyebrows significantly and Theodore nods tightly. Severus waits for the explosion. If there is one thing he knows about his Heir, he does not tolerate others suffering for him.
He will not allow Theodore to carry the burden of possible death now that he knows about it. It is dazzling. It is young. Then the knowledge drops down like a penny through water. Oh, you foolish, reckless boy. Binding people to me like slaves? Severus has never felt less prepared to be a parent.
Theodore raises an eyebrow but crosses over to the window. Lupin shakes his head. Harrison takes a deep breath. The stag erupts, hooves clattering on the dusty floorboards.
Lupin scrambles out of his chair in shock, wheeling backwards towards Severus who catches his arms, holding him steady. It is like no stag he has ever seen. If he is surprised by the change in the beast he doesn't show it. Circe help us. Severus can see the way his fingers dig into the fur.
Prongs tosses his head and walks nimbly across the floorboards to stand beside Theodore, who reaches out to touch the animal. It presses its nose into his hand but Severus can tell, it is not the same tangible fur that Harrison touched. It is something else. He is smiling with recognition, eyes alight with the purest joy.
Lupin gasps and sags against him. The boy shrugs, softly petting the animals flank but Lupin surges forwards. The animal turns its blazing eyes on Lupin and huffs, tossing his head as he turns his eyes back to Theodore.
Lupin looks dejected, crumpling inwards with the rejection. Harrison, astonishingly, looks at his godfather with soft pity. So damn forgiving. Severus does not think it makes it better. Harrison pushes his face against the beasts, the great animal turning snuffing at the boy's cheeks and bloodied forehead.
He feels a sense of judgement, but also recognition. Severus doesn't know why, but he finds himself inclining his head a tiny amount towards the proud, marvellous beast. I will not let him die.
Then the animal is gone and Lupin sags again, stumbling slightly against the sofa and Severus is catching him, feeling his slim, malnourished frame through his ragged cardigan.
He needs to get Lupin out of the house before he either vomits or faints. Severus stops in his tracks. This is the first time, he realises, that his son and heir has asked him something. The child commands, demands, manipulates or simply announces what he is doing, to hell with the consequence, he does not ask.
Severus might have a swooning werewolf clamped to his side but he recognises the importance of this. Goodwill, Severus, Narcissa's voice intones inside his head. He opens the door and hauls Lupin out onto the step where he drops, like a stone, to sit on the dark stoop with his head in his hands.
As he turns to look back into the house, he sees Theodore helping Harrison up the stairs. Perhaps this small concession will accrue him some goodwill. Severus walks back into the living room and is surprised to see two glasses and a dusty crystal decanter filled with amber liquid beside it sitting on the coffee table.
He has not brought spirits into this house in years. He has no idea where this has come from. Then he looks into the kitchen is met with the glare of a floury, frowning house-elf wearing a yellowed paisley apron. The kitchen is already beginning to smell of baked pastry and, against his own angry disdain, he can feel his stomach cramping eagerly.
Even accursed treacle tart sounds acceptable right now. The night is already dwindling away. The boys should eat and sleep. He picks up the two glasses and walks back to the door. He had anticipated the Weasleys and Miss Granger, but not this. How could any of this be anticipated? Severus steps back out into the cold, night time air to find Lupin doing something he has not seen him do since their Hogwarts days.
He is smoking. Severus kicks the door closed with a bang and glares at the wolf, who at least has the presence of mind to look a tiny bit guilty. Severus leans against the front door and takes a sip of whisky that Kreacher has somehow magicked into his house. There is something perversely joyful about that. Mages are chosen, Sev. He slams the door on his memory. He will not, he cannot, deal with Eileen tonight. He can produce a tangible Patronus!
He can break a conjuring circle! He can fucking soul bond! Not for the first time, he wonders who started that rumour. Rita fucking Skeeter, probably. Severus snorts angrily. His nose is full of the scent of blood, his own blood, spilt over twenty years ago in the basement. It is a stain in his mind that will never come out.
It is possible, Sev. Severus flinches at the familiar nickname. Severus tries very hard not to be grateful. Lupin shifts over slightly on the stoop. It is not quite an invitation but it is as much of one as Severus can bear. It is both relieving and annoying that Lupin knows how intolerable he finds kindness.
Severus lowers himself down beside Lupin, feeling the icy coldness of the stone step seeping through his body. Lupin offers him the cigarette.
Tobias blowing smoke in his face and slapping him when he coughed. Lupin sips his whisky, swallows, and then speaks. I have been mourning the dead for so long. He is also more intimately connected to the Dark Lord than anyone else alive, who knows what kind of power that might give him? Severus has had to accept many losses in his life, but the loss of the idea that Eileen was delusional is not one he will concede.
Too much was done. Too much that will hurt to bear if she was rational. This is so close to what Severus has been telling himself since he was fourteen years old that Severus laughs dryly, shaking his head. Lupin says nothing but passes Severus back the cigarette. The smoke burns gently in his mouth, furls out on the cold air.
Hot hands, hot smoke, cold air. The astonishing magic. The bond with Theodore. The Slytherin heritage. Was it not enough to simply have an unknown Heir who happened to be the Boy-who-bloody-Lived? Severus does not relish the conversation that will need to be endured. If his heir cannot see the need for it, he can at least be assured that Theodore will.
The last thing the son of Apollonius Nott will want is to have his secrets laid bare to Albus Dumbledore. Severus tries not to look at his lips. I do not have to run every decision by you. Lupin stares at him and then takes a deep breath. He sips his whisky and Severus sees his hand shaking slightly. He inhales quickly.
He has no idea how to parent, let alone how to parent this particular writhing anomaly of a child. Merlin help me, a Mage child. This is the start of who you are meant to be. He pinches the bridge of his nose. He cannot think about it so he does what he does best.
He thinks. He plans. He cannot return to Hogwarts unable to hold a wand. The boy cannot walk around Hogwarts blasting wandless and wordless untamed magic all over the place. Dumbledore would sense it immediately. There are only a few more left.
This is the werewolf up and down, already considering a million possibilities, fumbling through an extensive mental library. Severus has an eidetic memory but he is not as voracious a student and reader as Lupin. Nobody is. He feels a rare flash of something that he has not felt since he was thirteen, that he is utterly unprepared to feel right now: admiration.
He does not want to think about the burnished coloured wolf standing at the end of the tunnel, terrible and powerful in the moonlight. Later, he will write to Narcissa. Narcissa, my son is untameable. Please come and make it better. He tries not to roll his eyes imagining her response: Of course, he is, darling boy, he is your son after all. Lupin knows how Severus feels about Narcissa. Severus feels a strange cramping in his chest, a sense of being known and recognised. For the longest time, he always had a strange awareness of what Lupin was doing with his life, even when they settled on opposite sides of a violent war.
It is partly inevitable, Severus thinks, when wizarding society in Britain is still entirely formed at Hogwarts, but he also knows it is that unique quality reserved only to significant, adversarial lovers. It was only after , after the death of Potter and Lily, that Lupin disappeared onto the continent and Severus could no longer find any hint of him.
Severus feels a ghost of it now, but it is only a ghost. Lupin raises his eyebrows at the implication and sips his whisky. Severus stares up at the stars above him that are never as bright in Cokeworth as they are in Hogwarts.
As a child, before he understood light pollution, he thought it was simply that the world around Tobias could never be as bright. Please consider turning it on! Remember Me. Prologue - Turais Orion Black 2. The First Meeting with Death 3. The Shroud of Darkness 4. At World's End 5. Interlude - Boarding the Train 6. Birth of a Prodigy 7. A Tale of Three Brothers 8. Sacrifice 9. Battlelines Drawn The Lords and the Heirs Worlds Collide A Different Hogwarts The First Ascent The Phoenix, the Serpent, and the Slug Club In the Twelve Days Before Christmas In Health and In Sickness A Venomous Strike Discovered Check Intertwined Destinies Interlude - First Year In Review A Love Called Family The Seven Potters The Serpent's Lair Wolfsbane A Star Seeker was Born The Phoney War The Tempest Repercussions The War on All Fronts An Easter with the Potters Whitecaps and Dark Undertows The Intricacies of Caring Bonds Forged by War Checkmate Interlude - Second Year In Review Potter-Black Relations On the Matters of Potions, Hearts, and Time King's Cross - September 1st, Golden Manes and Forked Tongues Hairy Snout, Stony Heart A Two-Pronged Menace The Lone Wolf Echoes of Future Past A Very Sirius Birthday Ten of Swords The Ghosts of Our Past The Blood Moon Ascends And Then There Were Three Wax and Wane A Ripple in Time Counterpoint In Closed Wards with Open Ears Discovered Crimes and Hidden Relations Treasure Hunt A Tale of Two Sisters Unexpected Expectations Interlude - Third Year In Review The Sudden Storm
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