Aftermaths, Part 100
by Geri ([email protected])
Rating: Mostly PG-13, but NC-17 for overall story
Pairing: Snape/Lupin, Theodore/Blaise
Warning: AU; events that occurred at the end of Order of the Phoenix were
significantly altered from the book.
Sequel to: Always, Summer Vacation, For Old Time's Sake, Three's a Crowd, Return
of the Raven, Phoenix Reborn, and Phoenix Rising.
Summary: The various characters deal with the aftermath of the war, and Snape
and Lupin try to build a family together with Theodore and Dylan. However, some
people are unable to let go of the past...
Author's note: {} Indicates character's unspoken thoughts.
Disclaimer: Characters belong to J.K. Rowling, except Hob, who belongs to
William Mayne; no money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish
fulfillment on my part.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Saturday turned out to be a bright and sunny morning, a perfect day for a
Quidditch match. The students forgot their fear, and were laughing and wagering
on which team would win. Snape and Lupin helped Hooch check the players'
equipment and robes for hexes before the match; the players wore no rosettes
this time, as they had been banned due to the "accident" that had befallen Dylan
at the first match. After determining that there were no hexes present, Snape
and Lupin made their way up into the teacher's stand. Satoshi slipped a small
ceramic statue of a tanuki (similar to the ones often found outside bars and
restaurants in Japan) out of his robes, and plunked it down on the bench beside
him. He muttered a brief incantation, and the statue suddenly turned into a
life-sized likeness of himself that was holding a blue-and-bronze Ravenclaw
pennant in one hand and a green-and-silver Slytherin pennant in the other.
Simultaneously, the real Satoshi shrank down into the form of a large rat, which
scuttled under the bench and disappeared. The illusory Satoshi waved the blue
pennant and said, "Go, Ravenclaw!"
"Pretty impressive illusion," Lupin said admiringly.
"It's an innate tanuki ability," Snape replied, a bit grumpily. "It doesn't
require a great deal of effort on his part." Not that Satoshi was any rival for
Lupin's affections, but Snape didn't really like Lupin admiring anyone but
himself, just on principle.
Lupin grinned at him widely. "I love it when you're jealous, Sev," he cooed into
Snape's ear.
"Oh, shut up, Lupin," Snape growled, flushing a little.
"Don't look now, Snape," Lukas said, "but here comes your mother."
Snape repressed a groan as Selima approached, making her way up the stairs
towards them. He did not feel angry so much as he felt incredibly awkward. He
was embarrassed about having to face her after his outburst at Snape Manor, when
he had exposed much more of his emotions than he had meant to. And he wasn't
sure how he was supposed to mend things between them, although he knew that he
needed to for Theodore's sake.
Selima was wearing Theodore's silver-and-amber combs in her hair, and Dylan's
matching brooch pinned to her black robe. She was wearing a gold sash belted
around her waist, and dangling from it on a silk cord was the ivory dragon
netsuke Snape and Lupin had given her for Christmas. The small carving had been
displayed in a case with some other figurines the last time Snape had seen it
before leaving the Manor, so he was surprised to see Selima wearing it as an
ornament, although that was its original purpose. He wondered if she meant it to
be a peace offering.
Maybe so, because she looked uncharacteristically hesitant, and asked in a
diffident tone, "May I join you, Severus, Professor Lupin? Or I could join the
Parkinsons and the Baddocks in the Slytherin section, if it would not be
appropriate for me to sit among the teachers."
Snape stared at her in shock; he was not used to seeing her behave in a
deferential manner towards him. When she spoke to her son, she commanded,
berated, and lectured, but never deferred. In fact, although she was good at
flattering and manipulating her pureblood peers when necessary, he had never
seen her sincerely defer to anyone but his father. Yet here she stood before
him, head bowed respectfully, looking humble and a little anxious.
As a teenager, after Lucius had begun taking him to Voldemort's secret meetings
but before he had actually been branded with the Dark Mark, Snape had sometimes
dreamed of revenging himself on his parents. He had not wanted to kill them, the
way Lorcan Foley had eventually tortured and killed his abusive father, but he
had imagined them kneeling before him in fear and respect, perhaps begging his
forgiveness for the way they had treated him as a child. But now Snape found
that it gave him no pleasure to see his proud mother so humbled; in fact, he
found it a little disturbing, although he wasn't exactly sure why.
Before their argument, Lupin would have cheerfully told Selima to have a seat
without asking Snape's permission, but now he remained silent and waited for
Snape to reply. That too seemed wrong, somehow, although Snape had often found
the werewolf's presumption annoying in the past.
After a very long and awkward silence, Snape finally said in a voice that was
polite though a trifle stiff, "Please have a seat, Mother."
Selima looked relieved for a moment, before her face assumed its usual
expression of cool dignity, and took a seat on the bench beside him. Lupin
squeezed Snape's arm in a quick, unobtrusive gesture, and smiled at him warmly.
"Go, Slytherin!" the illusion of Satoshi said, waving the Slytherin pennant it
was holding.
Selima gave the illusion a puzzled look. "The game hasn't even started yet."
"Master Satoshi is just...er...very enthusiastic about the game," Lupin said.
Selima frowned, peering at "Master Satoshi" more closely, who took no apparent
notice of her. "That's an illusion, isn't it?" she asked suspiciously.
"Not so impressive after all," Snape couldn't resist telling Lupin.
"It was only meant to fool the students from a distance," Lupin said with a
smile.
"So where is the real Illusions teacher?" Selima asked. "And why does he feel
the need to leave a replica of himself here? I didn't think that attending the
Quidditch matches was mandatory."
Lupin hesitated, trying to decide how much to tell her. "He wanted to patrol the
stands discreetly, without the students noticing."
Selima crossed her arms and glared at her son and Lupin. "Are you expecting
trouble at this match, Severus?" she asked sharply. "Priscilla and Elaine told
me about the threatening note the Potter boy received. And I haven't forgotten
what happened at the first match. Is my grandson in any danger?"
Snape felt oddly relieved to see his mother behaving more like her normal,
imperious self. It had just seemed so unnatural to see her looking almost cowed.
Or maybe he had seen too many people's spirits broken during his tenure as a
spy--both the Death Eaters' victims and the Death Eaters themselves. He had
watched victims being tortured until they were willing to betray friends and
family members in order to stop the pain. He had watched Voldemort turn the
proud and arrogant Death Eaters into groveling slaves. So the thought of
humiliating and humbling another person, even someone he resented, was no longer
as appealing to him as it might once have been. Well, except perhaps for some of
his more unruly students...
"Severus?" Selima said impatiently, and Snape quickly shook off his
introspective mood.
"Yes, a threatening note was sent to Potter," Snape said briskly. "Possibly just
a childish prank, but the staff is taking all due precautions. We examined the
players and their equipment for hexes, and we will be watching the match very
closely. Master Satoshi is patrolling the stands in disguise. Since he is able
to shapeshift into animal form, he can easily observe the students without being
noticed."
"Wouldn't it have been safer to cancel the game?" Selima asked.
"Not really," Snape replied. "I'm certain that the so-called prankster is a
student, so he could attack at any time, not just during the match. But if
something does happen during the match today, we have a much better chance of
catching the culprit here, where we can observe the audience. I have not
forgotten what happened the last time either, Mother, and I would not do
anything to deliberately put my sons in danger."
Selima did not look completely convinced, but did not argue further, and a
moment later, the two teams took the field and Madam Hooch started the game.
"Go, Ravenclaw!" said the illusion of Satoshi.
Both teams were playing with determination, but Slytherin seemed to have the
edge over Ravenclaw. Unfortunately, Snape could not concentrate wholeheartedly
on the match. He had brought a pair of binoculars with him, and was scanning the
crowd in the stands while pretending to watch the game. He was concentrating
particularly on those students who had lost family members to the Death Eaters,
as well as those who were most vocal in being suspicious of the Slytherins, but
none of them looked like they were trying to cast a hex, and their attention
seemed to be focused on the game, the same as the rest of the students. He
noticed that the Sloper brothers, Andrew Kirke, and Dean Thomas were waving
Ravenclaw pennants--probably they were rooting against Slytherin more than they
were actually rooting for Ravenclaw. Granger, Patil, and Brown, on the other
hand, were openly waving Slytherin pennants, as was Allegra Zabini. Prospero,
Marius, and Olivia Zabini were sitting with Allegra, although Marius looked as
though he felt a little out of place in the Gryffindor stand. In the Hufflepuff
section of the stands, Isabelle Laroque and Susan Bones were sitting
together--it was interesting that two girls who had both lost uncles to the
Death Eaters had formed a friendship, but they were not behaving suspiciously,
and were laughing and cheering along with the other students. He did notice that
they seemed to be cheering for Ravenclaw, but that wasn't really suspicious in
and of itself. Tristan Ames-Diggory, however, who by all accounts was a
Quidditch fanatic and took great pride in being Hufflepuff's Seeker, looked
listless and unhappy, applauding halfheartedly when Ravenclaw managed to score a
goal. The Diggory family feud was probably taking its toll on the boy; he hadn't
talked back to Snape or quarreled with his Slytherin classmates in Potions class
for weeks. Maybe that was cause for concern, but right now Snape needed to
concentrate on ensuring the safety of his sons, and Tristan had his own Head of
House to worry about him. At least it seemed that Tristan didn't have enough
energy to be sending threatening notes or casting hexes.
Excited shouting jerked Snape's attention back to the game in time to see Dylan
pass the Quaffle to Theodore, who got it past the Keeper and threw it through
the Ravenclaw goal.
"Yes!" Lupin exclaimed.
"Go, Slytherin!" said Satoshi's illusion.
Snape smiled with satisfaction and turned his gaze towards the Ravenclaw stand;
he still considered Stewart Ackerley to be the prime suspect in the Porvora
attack on Aric. Ackerley didn't look as though he was going to cast a hex; he
was waving a pennant and shouting encouragement to the Ravenclaw team, as were
all his housemates. But Snape frowned when he saw who was sitting next to
Ackerley...
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Satoshi knew that Gryffindor and Slytherin were fierce rivals, and that there
was a history of bad blood between the two Houses, so he decided to investigate
the Gryffindors first. He scurried unseen beneath the stands, until he reached
the Gryffindor section. His nose twitched with interest as he caught the scent
of food. The students frequently brought snacks with them to the Quidditch
matches, and someone had carelessly spilled some food that had fallen to the
ground beneath the stands. There was a Bertie Bott's Bean--earwax, by the smell
of it, which was perhaps why it had been dropped--and some popcorn, and a bit of
chocolate...
Satoshi wrenched his attention away from the food and reminded himself that he
was supposed to be on patrol. The problem with taking animal form was that you
also took on some of the animal's instincts, and animals tended to be
preoccupied with finding food. There was plenty of food in the kitchens at
Hogwarts and he could go get a snack after the game, Satoshi told himself
firmly. There was no need to go eating food off the ground, although the idea
didn't disgust him as much as it would have most of his human colleagues, since
he was part animal to begin with. He spent most of his time in human form, but
he had hunted and scavenged food in his tanuki form, particularly when he had
been hiding from a jealous husband or irate customer.
Above him, he heard the sound of voices being raised in excitement and anger,
and he abandoned the food and moved closer to the sound, concentrating on what
the voices were saying.
"Go, Ravenclaw!" Jack Sloper shouted. "Beat those snakes!"
"Some people are so immature!" Parvati Patil said in a huffy voice. "You don't
even have any friends on the Ravenclaw team; you're only cheering for them
because you hate Slytherin!"
"And you're a traitor!" Jack retorted. "Are you still going to cheer on your
Slytherin boyfriend if they play Gryffindor in the finals? Are you going to root
for those snakes over us?"
"It's not a crime to date someone from another House!" Parvati snapped. "Dean is
dating a Hufflepuff, after all. Are you going to call him a traitor, too?"
"That's not the same thing!" Dean Thomas protested.
"Will you lot pipe down?" Ron Weasley complained. "I'm trying to concentrate on
the game!"
"You're dating a Slytherin, too, Weasley," Jack said accusingly.
"Are you calling me a traitor, Sloper?" Ron asked angrily.
"Here now, settle down," Sirius Black said sternly.
"You're not a teacher," Jack pointed out.
"No, but my wife is," Sirius said, in a voice that sounded almost as wicked and
smugly satisfied as Snape's did when he was about to punish some hapless
student. "And I'm sure that Professor Blackmore will be more than happy to hand
out detention if she hears that some of her students were causing a disturbance
during the game."
Even though Branwen was sitting across the field with the other teachers, that
threat was enough to make the arguing students fall silent. Satoshi chuckled
softly to himself, although in his current form, it came out as more of a
squeak. Jack and his friends might be hostile towards the Slytherins, but it
seemed unlikely that they would be able to carry out any mischief without being
noticed, now that they had attracted so much attention to themselves. He decided
to move on and investigate Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, but as he turned around to
leave, he found himself face to face with a large ginger cat.
Satoshi let out a startled squeak, and prepared to shapeshift, hoping that he
could manage to change before the cat pounced. But the cat made no move to
attack, and just cocked its head to one side and gave Satoshi a quizzical look.
"Crookshanks!" Hermione Granger called. "Crookshanks, where are you?"
"I'm sure he can take care of himself, Hermione," Harry Potter said in a voice
that tried to be soothing but came out more impatient.
Crookshanks stared at Satoshi a moment longer, then jumped up and climbed back
into the stands. "Ah, there you are!" Hermione exclaimed. Satoshi hurried on his
way, but took the time to change from a rat into a cat, just in case he ran into
any other stray familiars.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Meanwhile, Tonks was sitting in the Ravenclaw section of the stands, having
taken the form of a nondescript, elderly gray-haired witch. She was sitting at
the top, away from most of the other spectators, and if someone tried to talk to
her, she pretended to be hard of hearing, cupping her ear and saying, "Eh,
what's that, dearie?" Eventually, they gave up and left her alone, assuming that
she was some great-aunt or second cousin several times removed to one of the
players.
Sirius was already sitting in the Gryffindor section, and Severus had said that
he was suspicious of Stewart Ackerley, so Tonks had decided to investigate
Ravenclaw first. If she didn't spot anything suspicious, then she'd move on to
Hufflepuff. She had met Stewart only a couple of times before, when he had
stopped by the office to see his father, so it took her awhile to find him in
the crowd, since she didn't want to be too obvious about looking for him. But
eventually she found him, and her eyes widened in surprise--not because the boy
was doing anything suspicious, but because of who was sitting with him. His
mother sat beside him to the left, which was certainly normal enough, but to his
right sat a scarlet-robed wizard with long brown hair in a ponytail, and an
older, tough-looking man with short, wiry gray hair. They were two of Tonks's
fellow Aurors: Ian Williamson and Richard Dawlish.
She knew that they had been friends of Stewart's father, but she wondered what
they were doing here--had they just come to visit with their friend's son, or
were they also expecting trouble at the match? Dumbledore had not filed an
official report about the threat to Harry with the Ministry, but with the way
gossip traveled in the wizarding world, the two Aurors could easily have heard
about it and decided to investigate unofficially, as Tonks herself was doing.
Tonks should have felt reassured about having two colleagues on hand as backup
in case something did happen, but instead she felt uneasy. The two men had been
cronies of the late Cornelius Fudge, and weren't entirely pleased about the
change in administration. They were also the Aurors who had trashed the Nott
mansion while searching it during the summer, which had led to a furious Snape
demanding an apology and compensation on Theodore's behalf. Arthur had forced
them to write letters of apology, which had not endeared him any further to the
Aurors. They were not actually bad men, but they were narrow-minded and had
grown used to following Fudge's orders without thinking for themselves--a bad
trait in an Auror, Tonks felt. They were too proud to admit that they--and
Fudge--had been wrong, and had been carrying a chip on their shoulders ever
since the war had ended. They resented their loss in status now that they were
no longer the Minister's right-hand men, and they felt that the surviving Death
Eaters and their families had gotten off too easy. If it had been up to them,
the Death Eaters would all have been executed, and their children interrogated
and possibly imprisoned. Part of it was due to grief and anger at losing two
fellow Aurors, including Stewart's father, during the final battle, but Tonks
was worried, because that grief and anger seemed to festering rather than
healing with time. Williamson had been a housemate of hers at Hogwarts, a fellow
Gryffindor a couple of years ahead of her. He had been a nice enough guy
then--handsome and funny and charming, if a bit full of himself. But somewhere
along the line, childish self-centeredness had turned into arrogance, and he had
felt no regret about what he had done to the Nott mansion, including tearing
apart Theodore's room out of what seemed like sheer spite. When she had
confronted him about it, he had accused of her "going soft," and regarded her
with suspicion because of her friendship with Remus and Severus.
As for Dawlish, he was the type who carried out his orders to the letter,
without using any personal judgment--or any compassion. She recalled how he had
been one of the Aurors who had struck McGonagall with a stunning spell when she
had tried to stop them from attacking Hagrid during Harry's fifth year, when
Umbridge had been running Hogwarts. McGonagall's injuries had been severe enough
to send her to St. Mungo's, and Tonks could not forgive him for hurting her
former Head of House and one of her favorite teachers. But even more importantly
than that, it made her wonder--if Dawlish was willing to attack an upstanding
citizen, a respected Hogwarts teacher in that manner, what might he do to a
child that he suspected of being a Death Eater...?
Tonks tried to reassure herself that even Dawlish wouldn't act without orders,
and that Arthur wouldn't let him get out of hand, but nevertheless, she did not
reveal herself to her fellow Aurors, and remained in disguise, sitting quietly
in the stands as she watched them carefully.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
The game was going well for Slytherin; Ravenclaw was still regrouping after
several key players had graduated last year, and the new members, while talented
enough, were inexperienced and still learning to work together as a team.
Slytherin was currently ahead by fifty points, and at the rate things were
going, they might be able to get a big enough lead to win even if Ravenclaw did
catch the Snitch, although Draco had no intention of letting that happen.
Theodore had the Quaffle and was racing towards the Ravenclaw goals, while Draco
and the Ravenclaw Seeker were circling the Pitch, waiting impatiently for the
Snitch to appear. They saw a raven soaring above them, and Draco gave it a
puzzled look. "What is Bane doing out here?" he wondered aloud, then scowled and
muttered, "He'd better not interfere with the game!" He had a sudden vision of
the bird grabbing the Snitch, and wondered what Madam Hooch would do if that
happened.
The Ravenclaw Seeker opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say
anything, off in the distance, a deep voice boomed, "MORSMORDRE!" and the image
of a giant skull with a snake coming out of its mouth appeared in the sky. The
skull and snake seemed to be made of a pale, sickly-looking, glowing green
light, and Draco gasped and turned white.
Theodore halted in midair, paralyzed with fear, staring in horrified fascination
at the glowing skull. All of the other players were similarly affected, so there
was no one controlling the Bludgers, and Theodore never even saw the Ravenclaw
Bludger race towards him and strike him in the back of the head. He heard a
loud, cracking noise like bone shattering as his head exploded with pain, then
suddenly everything went black. Theodore's unconscious body tumbled silently off
his broomstick and fell towards the ground.
The players were still staring at the skull, and it took them precious seconds
to notice that Theodore had fallen. Bane noticed, however, and plummeted
straight down towards the boy in a steep dive, screeching loudly. He grabbed
hold of Theodore's robes with his claws, but although Bane was huge, closer to
an eagle in size than a raven, he was not big enough to support the weight of a
nearly full-grown human body. If the situation were less serious, he might have
looked almost comical, flapping his wings mightily in a vain attempt to keep
himself and the boy aloft.
The teachers and students snapped into action. Alerted by Bane's scream, Madam
Hooch and most of the Slytherins took off after Theodore; the others went after
the Bludgers, shouting at the Ravenclaw team to help them. Some of the
Ravenclaws were still too stunned to react, but Michael Corner, one of the
Chasers, slapped the Beater on the back of his head and said sharply, "Wake up
and grab that Bludger before it hits someone else!" The Beater took off after
the Bludger, and Michael joined the Slytherins in diving after Theodore and
Bane.
In the teacher's stand, Snape stared at the glowing skull in horror and
confusion. For one heart-stopping moment of terror, he thought that Voldemort
had returned, then realized that there was something not quite right about the
Dark Mark in the sky. But then the Bludger struck Theodore, and he had no time
to think; he and Branwen and Sinistra grabbed their broomsticks and launched
themselves into the air. Trelawney was waving her arms, shouting, "Doom! Death
and doom!" Lukas ignored her, pulled out his wand, and jumped straight from the
stands down to the Pitch, not bothering to waste time using the stairs. He cast
a small levitation charm to slow his fall enough so that he didn't injure
himself, and hit the ground running. Without hesitation, Lupin followed suit.
The other teachers were not quite so bold, but they hurried down the stairs as
fast as they could.
Although Bane was not strong enough to support Theodore's weight, he had managed
to slow the boy's fall slightly. The raven kept his claws firmly clenched in
Theodore's robes, but the weight of the boy's body was causing the cloth to
strain and tear. Just as the robes finally gave way and ripped free from Bane's
claws, Draco and Dylan reached them and frantically grabbed hold of whatever
they could reach; Dylan managed to grab Theodore's arm, while Draco only got a
handful of robes, but they managed to stop him from falling, at least for the
moment. Madam Hooch, Michael, and Damien joined them a moment later, getting a
more secure hold on Theodore, and then Snape, Branwen, and Sinistra arrived. The
others helped ease Theodore very carefully onto Snape's broomstick, and Snape
wrapped an arm around the boy's waist to keep him from falling, as he was still
unconscious. Draco and Dylan rode alongside him, each reaching out with one hand
to help keep Theodore steady as they slowly descended to the ground. Snape bit
his lip, chafing at the slow pace, but he knew that moving too quickly might
cause Theodore to fall, and that too much bouncing and jostling might worsen
what looked to be a serious head injury.
Below them, Lupin and Lukas abandoned the levitation spells they had been
preparing, and instead conjured up a stretcher, then hurried over to lift
Theodore off Snape's broomstick as the trio landed on the Pitch.
"Be careful!" Madam Pomfrey cried as they laid him down on the stretcher. "Try
not to move his head too much."
She knelt down to examine him, frowning worriedly, and Dylan asked anxiously,
"He's going to be okay, isn't he?"
"Just as I suspected," Pomfrey said gravely, avoiding Dylan's question. "His
skull is fractured." She took out her wand and cast a quick healing spell, then
said, "That will stabilize him for now, but we need to get him to the hospital
wing right away. Strap him into the stretcher securely; we don't want him
bouncing around when we transport him."
Snape and Lupin hastened to obey, as Hagrid came up leading one loose Thestral
and another harnessed to a small sledge. "He's not going to bounce around on
that?" Snape asked dubiously.
"It'll be a quicker an' smoother ride than by broomstick," Hagrid promised.
"We need to get him back to the castle as soon as possible," Pomfrey said, and
Snape reluctantly nodded his consent. They secured the stretcher to the sledge,
then Hagrid lifted Pomfrey onto the back of the loose Thestral, and slapped both
animals on the rump.
"Off to the castle with yeh!" he said, and the Thestrals took off running as
Pomfrey let out a startled yelp. Snape and Lupin followed on broomstick.