Aftermaths, Part 129

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.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next morning, the headline on the cover of the Daily Prophet read: "WOLF ATTACK IN LONDON!" Rita Skeeter had dutifully reported all the facts of the story, including Smethwyck's statement that a werewolf could not have inflicted the victim's wounds, but that calm and clinical statement did little to distract from the inflammatory headline, or the Aurors' statements that they were investigating possible ties between the werewolves and the attack. And Williamson made a point of mentioning that the victim was a member of the Wizengamot who was opposed to equal rights for werewolves.

The Great Hall was buzzing with gossip, and most of the students sounded angry about the accusations. But a few of them glanced over at Lukas with fearful or suspicious looks on their faces.

At the Gryffindor table, the Sloper brothers were among the students giving Lukas nervous looks. "Do you really suppose that Master Diggory attacked that man?" Kenneth asked.

A furious Hermione pulled out her wand and a burst of flame shot out from it, reducing the Slopers' newspaper into a pile of ash.

"Hey!" Jack protested.

"Do you really believe all that rubbish?" Hermione demanded. "It's just Rita Skeeter up to her old tricks again!" She added in a softer, but no less angry voice to Harry and Ron, "And she's going to be very sorry that she broke her promise!"

"Actually, the article is pretty well-balanced apart from the headline," Ginny observed. "She does point out that it wasn't the full moon, and that the Healer at St. Mungo's says that the wounds weren't made by a werewolf. The Aurors are the ones making accusations against the werewolves. They're not accusing Master Diggory directly, but they're dropping some pretty big hints, like saying that the victim was a member of the Wizengamot who was overseeing Master Diggory's trial."

"People won't care about the little details," Harry said, suddenly feeling a deep sense of sympathy for his teacher, having been the object of Rita Skeeter's slanderous articles in the past. "They'll see the headline, and they'll see that the Aurors suspect Master Diggory, and they'll automatically assume it's a werewolf attack."

At the head table, McGonagall tried to comfort Lukas by saying, "The students have faith in you, Master Diggory."

"I'm not worried about what the students think of me," Lukas said glumly. "I'm more worried about what the Wizengamot and the public at large will think. My pack is living openly among the humans now, which makes them a target for my enemies and for any vigilantes who get inspired by this damned article. Maybe I should take a leave of absence to watch over them."

"If you leave the school, people will see it as an admission of guilt," Dumbledore warned.

"Maybe you need something like a Muggle surveillance system for the werewolves' house and the clinic," Satoshi suggested. The tanuki had spent a great deal of time living among normal humans in Japan, enough to have a good understanding of Muggle technology.

"A what?" Snape asked.

"A device that would record and monitor the people coming and going into and out of the building," Satoshi explained. "And that would trigger an alarm if an intruder tries to break in."

"The house and the clinic aren't wired for electricity," Lukas said. "But maybe we could rig up some warding spells that would perform a similar function."

"You should just post Bane on guard at the werewolves' residence," Snape said, giving the raven a wry little smile. "He's certainly proved efficient at monitoring the students."

The raven cawed, sounding displeased at the idea of being separated from his mistress, and Branwen stroked her familiar, a thoughtful look on her face. "Not Bane, but perhaps I might be able to help in another way...let's discuss this in private."

Dumbledore, Lukas, Lupin, and Snape followed Branwen to the Incantations workroom. "I could try to summon some elementals to keep watch over your pack," she told Lukas. "It won't be a perfect guarantee of their safety, though," she cautioned. "Air elementals are the only ones that would be able to move freely and carry messages back to me if trouble does break out, and air elementals are notoriously capricious and difficult to control. They have a short attention span, and it's difficult to make them stick to an extended task, such as the type of surveillance that Satoshi suggested."

"But you're a Master Summoner," Snape said.

Branwen smiled at him. "You flatter me, Severus. It would be no problem to keep the elementals under control if they were close at hand, say, on the school grounds. But the farther away they are from me physically, the harder it is to control them. What I will do is this: I will summon several elementals at once and set them to watching over your pack, Lukas. A few will probably get bored and drift away from their task, but enough should remain to warn us of any trouble. If nothing happens after a few days, I'll dismiss them and summon a new batch. Their attention span won't hold for much longer than that, no matter how devoted they are to me."

"And I will go down to the house and the clinic today to set up some protective wards," Dumbledore said.

"Thank you," Lukas said gratefully. "I appreciate whatever help the two of you can give me."

"Then I had better get to work setting up the Summoning spell," Branwen said.

"I wonder..." Lukas said speculatively.

"Yes?" Branwen asked.

"While you're at it, would you be able to summon an elemental to keep an eye on Amos?" Lukas asked. "It would help if I could prove that he was involved with this fake werewolf attack."

"Just so you know," Dumbledore said in a conversational tone, "it's illegal to use an elemental or other such spirit to spy on a wizard without his knowledge. And of course I know that my staff would never do anything illegal. Well, I'd better be off now. Good luck with the elementals, Branwen." The old wizard smiled and winked at them, then left the room.

"So can you do it?" Lukas asked. "Or rather, will you do it?"

"Of course," Branwen said with a serene smile. "But even if we find out that Amos is guilty, evidence gathered illegally is inadmissible in court."

"It doesn't matter," Lukas said. "We can figure out later how to bring him down. I just want to be certain that he's the one behind this. And if it isn't him, then we'll know we need to look elsewhere."

"Very well," Branwen said. Snape and Lupin helped her inscribe the protective circle and runes on the floor; Lukas merely watched, as he was untrained in Summoning spells. Branwen smiled approvingly at her two former pupils. "I'm glad to see that you haven't forgotten what I taught you," she said. Lupin grinned and Snape regarded her with his usual scowl. Once the circle was completed, Branwen performed the Summoning, and a multitude of air elementals swarmed around her, raising little gusts of wind that caused her hair to float and her robes to billow out, and also ruffled an irritated Bane's feathers. She whispered instructions to the elementals, then they whirled off and vanished, leaving the air in the workroom still once more.

"It's done," Branwen said. "Now all we can do is wait."
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

The elemental assigned to Amos Diggory immediately flew off to the Diggory residence in Ottery St. Catchpole. It watched its target carefully, but Amos did nothing more exciting than eat breakfast and drink coffee while reading a newspaper. The elemental did note that Amos frowned, looking displeased about what he read. However, the creature soon grew bored, and amused itself by sending a playful little breeze that sent an unread section of the newspaper flying into the air.

"Goodness!" Helen Diggory exclaimed. "There must be a draft coming through the window." She got up and closed a nearby window that had been left open to let in sunlight and fresh air. "That's funny, though," she said, sounding puzzled. "It didn't seem like a windy day this morning."

"I don't have time to read the rest of the paper, anyway," Amos said, rising to his feet. "I need to get to the office early and take care of a few things."

"Please don't overwork yourself, dear," Helen said, looking concerned.

Amos kissed his wife on the cheek. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. There's just a bit of paperwork I need to finish up." He strode over the fireplace, threw in a handful of Floo Powder, and said, "Ministry of Magic!"

The elemental tried to follow Amos through the fireplace, but found itself repelled, and was blown back into the room, along with a handful of ashes from the fireplace.

"The wind's blowing down the chimney now?" Helen said, to no one in particular. "I wonder if we have some sort of imp loose in the house? I hope it's not a doxy. Maybe I should borrow some repellant from Mrs. Weasley."

The air elemental ignored her and left the house, exiting up the chimney. This elemental was more determined than most, and flew off to the Ministry of Magic, thinking that it might be able to get in from the outside even if it couldn't go through the Floo. However, it found that the building was well-warded, and could not find even a small crack in the defenses to slip through. Finally it gave up, and flew back to its mistress to report defeat.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Branwen went to see Lukas between classes and told him, "The elemental tried to follow Amos to work, but the protective wards on the Ministry kept it out. They must have strengthened their defenses after the war."

"Like locking the barn door after the horse is stolen," Lukas scoffed.

"I've instructed the elemental to keep a watch on Amos's house," Branwen continued. "That's the best I can do right now."

"If Amos is up to something fishy, he'll probably be doing it on his own time, anyway, not at work," Lukas said.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

But in this instance, Lukas was wrong. Amos managed to catch Williamson alone in the halls and hissed, "I have to talk to you!"

"Not here," Williamson said, and led him to a supply closet, where he warded the door and cast a silence spell.

"Your plan failed!" Amos shouted, once the spells were in place.

"It didn't fail," Williamson said coolly. "We just had a minor setback."

"The Healer told the paper that it wasn't a werewolf attack, after all!" Amos shouted. "You call that 'a minor setback'?!"

"I didn't count on the St. Mungo's staff being werewolf sympathizers," Williamson said with a scowl. "But still, it's set a bit of doubt in people's minds. When the public reads that a man was attacked by wolves, they'll immediately think of a werewolf attack. They're not going to put too much faith in some supposed expert's opinion about the length of a werewolf's claws.

"But when he doesn't transform during the next full moon, they'll know Pritchard wasn't bitten by a werewolf!" Amos argued.

"We don't actually have to prove in court that a werewolf did it," Williamson said. "We just have to get the public--and the Wizengamot--to believe it. A few more attacks like this one, and there will be so much hysteria that your nephew will seem like a menace instead of a hero. And I'll be more careful in the future. I'll make sure to physically transfigure the dogs instead of just using an Illusion spell. I'll give them nice long, sharp claws like a werewolf should have. So nice of that brat Kimura to give me such an accurate description."

"Why'd you make the second wolf gray, anyway?" Amos asked sullenly. "Wouldn't it have been better to make it brown, so that we could accuse Lupin or that other werewolf Randolf? We ought be discrediting all those werewolf 'heroes'." He said the word "heroes" with an obvious note of sarcastic contempt.

"Because wolves are normally gray," Williamson said impatiently. "I wanted to make sure that Pritchard would think they were wolves and not just a couple of big dogs. Now that we've established the idea of a werewolf attack in people's minds, we can try to implicate Lupin or Randolf. Quit your griping, Amos. I'm doing most of the work, after all."

"I'm at risk, too," Amos protested. "We could both be thrown in Azkaban if we're caught."

"We won't get caught," Williamson said with an air of brash confidence that didn't reassure Amos.

"Maybe we should stop now, or at least hold off for awhile," Amos said nervously. "Maybe you're right; maybe the rumors will be enough to stop Cyril from winning the trial."

"But you don't just want to win the trial, do you, Amos?" Williamson said persuasively. "You want to take Cyril down, see him locked up like the beast he is. And I'm not just doing this for your sake, Amos, much as I like you. I want to take down Snape as well, remember?"

"And how do you intend to do that?" Amos asked.

"I have a plan," Williamson said with a smug grin. "It might even help account for the inconsistencies in the wolves' appearance. But I'll need a little help from a friend at Hogwarts to pull it off."
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Narcissa Malfoy saw the article in the Daily Prophet and worried about Lukas, although she didn't know why. It wasn't as if the werewolf was a part of her life anymore. But still...she did not want to see him go to Azkaban. She knew that he was capable of violence, and she knew from personal experience that he was given to acting on impulse and following his wolfish instincts, but somehow she did not believe that he had attacked Elias Pritchard. She could see him getting into a brawl and killing someone in a fit of rage, but she couldn't see him cold-bloodedly stalking someone in his wolf form and attacking them without warning, like an assassin. Well, perhaps if they were a threat to his pack, but Pritchard didn't seem to be any more of a threat than anyone else on the Wizengamot, and Lukas couldn't very well kill everyone who might vote against him. Narcissa thought of the werewolf's feral, yellowish eyes and shuddered a little, with both fear and an echo of remembered pleasure. If Lukas really wanted to kill someone, they would be dead. He would never have left the job half-finished and his victim still alive.

Narcissa sighed and set the paper aside. She was going over to Aileen Pierce's house for tea, and she needed to get ready. It had been a long time since she had last seen her friend. She had been depressed after Lukas broke up with her, and she had avoided Aileen, knowing that the other woman was perceptive enough to pick up on her mood, and Narcissa had not really wanted to explain to her friend just why she was depressed. And lately she had been feeling nauseous, finding it difficult to keep any food down. Perhaps it was some sort of ironic justice, that she had caught a bad case of the flu after pretending to be sick to avoid the Snapes' party. She had taken some tonics, but none of them seemed to help much. Maybe she ought to see a Healer, but she hated venturing out where she might encounter some of her old friends who now scorned her.

Still, she was feeling a little better today, good enough to feel up to accepting Aileen's invitation. Besides, it was obvious from Aileen's letters that she was beginning to get worried, and Narcissa wanted to set her mind at ease--and stave off any suspicions that might cause her to investigate Narcissa's personal life.

So Narcissa slipped into her favorite green velvet gown and laced up the bodice, admiring her reflection in the mirror. She was proud of herself for maintaining her beauty and her figure, despite being old enough to have a teenage son. She winced a little as she tightened the bodice laces, though, noticing that her breasts were a little tender and sore. Perhaps her period was due; she wrinkled her nose in distaste at the thought. And then she suddenly realized that it had been a very long time since her last period, and began counting back, trying to remember when it had last occurred. Not in April, not in March...Narcissa grew increasingly frantic as she realized that her last period had been way back in late January or early February, well before her last encounter with Lukas.

And then she realized that her symptoms had not really been very flu-like--no coughing, sore throat, or fever, just a constant sense of nausea. The last time she had felt so sick had been when she was pregnant with Draco...

Narcissa sank to her knees and burst into tears.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

When Narcissa arrived for tea, Aileen Pierce noticed that her friend seemed tense and agitated, and that her eyes were red, as if from crying. "Whatever is wrong, Narcissa dear?" she asked gently.

Narcissa bit her lower lip, looking like the frightened young first-year that Aileen remembered from her days at Hogwarts. "I'm pregnant," she finally blurted out.

Aileen stared at her in shock, then exclaimed, "Oh! But you...I didn't know...you never told me that you had a...a...a suitor!"

Narcissa flushed and hung her head. "He wasn't really someone...suitable," she mumbled.

Aileen felt a little hurt that Narcissa had not confided in her about this mysterious lover sooner. But then again, if he was someone unsuitable, perhaps Narcissa had been afraid that Aileen might discourage her from seeing him--which was quite possible, even probable. Well, there was no point in crying over spilt milk; now she had to see if anything could be salvaged from this situation.

"How far along are you?" she asked.

"I'm not sure exactly," Narcissa whispered. "A little over two months, I think."

"Honestly, Narcissa," Aileen said, a little exasperation seeping into the sympathy in her voice, "how could you let this happen? There's no harm in a little discreet pleasure, but to get knocked up like some naive little Gryffindor schoolgirl who doesn't know about birth control spells? I taught you those spells myself when you were thirteen years old!" Of course, back then, little Narcissa had been planning to keep herself "pure" for her future husband--her family had had their eye on the rich and handsome Lucius Malfoy--but the ever-practical Aileen, as cynical as any good Slytherin should be, had known that the best of intentions could go astray, and had taught her younger friend the spells "just in case".

Narcissa blushed guiltily, looking like she was indeed thirteen instead of thirty-seven. "It's just," she said in a small, chastened voice, "that...well...I never used any birth control charms or spells during my entire marriage. I secretly used a fertility potion to help me conceive Draco because I wanted to give Lucius an heir right away. I never got pregnant again after that. I thought...I thought I couldn't get pregnant without magical help..."

"For Merlin's sake!" Aileen snapped. "Everyone knows that a wizard or witch's fertility can be capricious. Some of the Healers say that it's because of the effect that our magic has on our bodies. Just look at Goewin and Mathias Donner, him old enough to be her grandfather and married twenty years before their baby Ariana came along!"

"I'm sorry!" wailed Narcissa, bursting into tears.

Aileen sighed and relented, wrapping her arms around Narcissa, comforting her the way she used to when Narcissa was a homesick first-year at Hogwarts. It had always been Aileen that Narcissa had sought comfort from, never her older sisters Bellatrix and Andromeda. But then, Andromeda had been in Ravenclaw and hadn't spent much time with her sisters, and no one in their right mind would seek comfort from Bellatrix, who even then had been a sadist. Aileen had had the impression that Bellatrix had been jealous of her little sister, because she was so beautiful--the loveliest girl not just in the Black family, but in all of Slytherin--and because their parents had spoiled her, since she had been the baby of the family.

Aileen held Narcissa until she stopped crying, wiped away her tears with a handkerchief, and made her drink some hot tea. "Well, then," Aileen said briskly. "What's done is done; no point in scolding you about what you should have done. The question is, what will you do now? Will this suitor marry you?"

"No!" Narcissa cried, looking horrified.

Aileen frowned disapprovingly. "Is he such a cad, that he won't take responsibility for what he's done? Will he leave you to bear the child, and the disgrace, alone?"

"He's not like that!" Narcissa said defensively. "He doesn't even know that I'm pregnant!"

"Hmm," Aileen said, raising her eyebrows at how quickly Narcissa had jumped to her lover's defense; Narcissa blushed.

"I can't marry him, even if he wanted to marry me," Narcissa said quietly.

"Is he married, then?" Aileen asked, trying to think of which married pureblood men might appeal to Narcissa.

"No, it's not that," Narcissa replied. "It's just...he's not suitable husband material."

Aileen raised her eyebrows again. "Is he a Mudblood or a half-blood, then?" Narcissa said nothing and would not meet her eyes. "Well, if he will not or cannot marry you, then we must find a way to rid you of the child," Aileen said. "It's early enough that it should not do much harm to your body. I know of a place in Knockturn Alley where you can get a potion--"

"No!" cried Narcissa, protectively wrapping her arms around her stomach.

Aileen stared at her in surprise. "But Narcissa, you cannot bear a child out of wedlock; you would be disgraced. And even if you don't care about your reputation, you have Draco to think of--"

"I know, but I can't kill this baby, I just can't!" Narcissa sobbed. "Oh Aileen, I just don't know what to do!"

Aileen sighed helplessly. "Is your lover really so unsuitable?" she asked. "Even if he has Muggle blood, well...times have changed. Harry Potter is a half-blood, after all, and the new Minister of Magic, though a pureblood, is known for his liberal policies."

"You...you wouldn't care if I married a Mudblood?" Narcissa sniffled, looking startled.

Aileen had been taught to look down on those whose blood was not pure; it was practically an automatic reflex in Slytherin House. But she had never wasted much time thinking about it, and she had never felt the strong hatred for the Muggle-born that had driven many of her housemates to join the Death Eaters. "Well, I can't say that the idea thrills me," Aileen finally said after a long silence, "but as I said, times have changed, and surely it's better than having a bastard child." She laid her hand gently on Narcissa's cheek. "So long as you are happy, dear, I will support you."

Narcissa threw her arms around her friend, and Aileen held her once more while she wept. But when she stopped crying and lifted her head from Aileen's shoulder, Narcissa said, "I cannot marry him."

"Then there is only one other option," Aileen said. "You must have the child in secret and give it away." She frowned. "It will be difficult, though. You can disguise your figure with Illusion spells, but if someone--your son, for instance--tries to hug you, he'll notice that there's more of you than is visible. And you will definitely be showing by the time school gets out in June. Perhaps you could go on a long trip overseas...but Draco will think it odd that you would want to be gone when he graduates..."

"Give up my child?" Narcissa whispered. "To whom?"

Aileen shrugged. "An orphanage, I suppose..."

"No!" Narcissa shouted. "I've heard horrible stories about such places!"

Aileen sighed yet again; Narcissa was certainly not making this easy! She dearly loved her friend, but Narcissa had been spoiled and indulged ever since she was a child, and was used to getting her way and having other people solve her problems for her. Aileen had to admit that she was probably also guilty of spoiling Narcissa; she had always wanted a little sister, and as a child, Narcissa had been pretty as a doll, with emerald eyes and golden ringlets of hair, and had looked up to Aileen so adoringly that it had been difficult not to indulge her even when you had known that you shouldn't.

So Aileen once again found herself helping Narcissa out of trouble, but this time it was much more serious than detention for a prank or sneaking out of the dorm after hours. "Well, Dumbledore has always been a bleeding heart," Aileen said, a little irritably. "I am sure he can find a good foster home for the child." As Narcissa opened her mouth to protest, Aileen quickly added, "We won't tell him that it's yours, of course!" She thought things things over, then said, "I'll tell him that one of the workers at Liam's factory, a girl of low rank, got pregnant by a man who refuses to marry her--some pureblood rake who used her for a bit of fun. It's not really all that uncommon, and I'm sure Dumbledore will take pity on the child..." Aileen's expression brightened as something occurred to her. "In fact...maybe he can persuade the Snape family to adopt the baby! After all, it seems that Snape's son is unlikely to be fathering any children of his own, from what I've heard about that ruckus at the Yule Ball. Your baby will have old, pure blood, after all, and the Malfoys are distantly related to the Snapes. We won't tell them that the child is a Malfoy, but I can swear under oath that the child does have Snape blood." Aileen felt very pleased with herself. "And as a Snape, your baby would be well-cared for and would want for nothing. Of course, Theodore is a bit young to be raising a child, and I can't see Severus caring for a baby, but my son says that Lupin is very softhearted and--"

"No!" Narcissa protested, an alarmed look on her face. "Remus can't raise this baby!"

"Why not?!" demanded Aileen, feeling a little put out at having her perfect solution turned down. "You can't keep the baby, but you won't abort it, and you won't give it away! What do you plan to do with it? I know that Lupin is a werewolf, but I'm sure that he would take good care of the baby--"

"It's not that I think he would be a bad parent," Narcissa said softly. "I'm sure he would be a very good one. It's just that...I'm afraid that he might recognize the baby..."

Aileen stared at Narcissa in confusion until the obvious occurred to her. "Lupin knows the father!"

"Yes," Narcissa whispered, dropping her gaze to the floor.

"Well, there's no guarantee that the baby will resemble the father that strongly," Aileen tried to reassure her.

Narcissa glanced up, and she looked frightened and ashamed. "I am afraid that you will hate me if I tell you the truth about the baby's father."

Aileen took Narcissa's hands in hers and said gently, "My dear, I could never hate you. You were once a Death Eater, but I do not hold it against you. Surely you know that you can tell me the truth."

"Remus would actually be a good foster parent to this baby," Narcissa whispered, "because...because...the baby's father is a werewolf."

"What?!" Aileen exclaimed.

"See, I knew you would hate me!" Narcissa wailed.

"No, I don't!" Aileen protested, her thoughts whirling around inside her head dizzily. "It's just...it's such a shock...where on earth did you meet a werewolf, anyway?! I thought Lupin was the only werewolf that you knew, and he's said to be quite devoted to Severus. Wait...Damien said that there's another werewolf teaching there now, the one who turned out to be..." Her voice trailed off, and the look on Narcissa's face seemed to confirm Aileen's suspicions. "Don't tell me that your secret lover is Cyril Diggory!"

"Yes," Narcissa said, her cheeks flaming red. "Only he prefers to call himself 'Lukas'. So you see, I can't send this child to just any foster home. What if it turns out to be a werewolf?" Her face turned from red to sheet-white as she placed her hands on her belly. "What if...what if instead of a baby, there's a wolf cub growing in my womb?"

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic, Narcissa!" Aileen said. "Even if the child did inherit its father's lycanthropy--which is by no means certain--it won't begin to show symptoms for at least a few years. You're not going to give birth to a puppy." There was not a great deal published about inherited lycanthropy, but Lupin and Diggory had shared a few bits of information with their classes, and Damien, who seemed quite taken with his werewolf teachers, had told her about all the fascinating things he was learning in their classes. A little concerned about her son's fondness for the werewolves, Aileen had done some research on her own that seemed to confirm that what they were teaching was true. Which didn't necessarily reassure her all that much, but since Lupin had defended the Slytherin children during the final battle, she had decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

"I suppose you're right," Narcissa admitted sheepishly. "Still, I'm afraid that I'll have nightmares about giving birth to a wolf cub."

"And yet you won't abort the baby," Aileen said.

"I can't," Narcissa whispered, staring at her with pleading eyes. "I just can't."

"You love him," Aileen said quietly. "Cyril Diggory, or Lukas Bleddri, or whatever name he is currently going by." Tears began to spill out of Narcissa's eyes again. "Well," Aileen said slowly, "the situation might not be so bad after all. He is a hero of the war, and if he wins his lawsuit, he will become Lord Diggory. You would be marrying a Lord, not some penniless nobody."

"B-but he's a werewolf!" Narcissa protested.

"He will be Lord Werewolf," Aileen said whimsically. In a more serious voice, she added, "It is true that many people will shun you, but as they are already shunning you now, I can't see that it will make a great deal of difference. Lady Selima, at least, might welcome you, if it makes her son's romance with Lupin a little less shocking. She is supporting your lover's claim to the Diggory title, is she not? And of course Severus will stand by you, and I've heard that the Minister of Magic is a friend of the werewolves. The favor of the Snape and Weasley families might help make up for whatever disgrace you would face for marrying a werewolf. And if Cyril Diggory is to become a Lord, might he not welcome an heir?"

Narcissa shook her head, still weeping. "No, he told me once that he plans to name his cousin as his heir because he doesn't want to pass his curse on to his children. It's one of the key points of his lawyer's argument, to pacify the Wizengamot, that the title will eventually return to a pureblood wizard. And..." She began crying harder. "He hates all purebloods, because of the way his uncle and grandparents cast him out of the family. He despises us; he'd never want to marry me!"

"He seems to have overcome his distaste long enough to get you pregnant," Aileen pointed out dryly.

"We hated each other when we first met," Narcissa said between sobs. "Yet we were somehow drawn to each other; I still don't understand why. I hated him, too, but we couldn't keep away from each other. Every time we met, we'd trade insults, but the sex was...amazing." She blushed. "Not that it was bad with Lucius, but this was so much more passionate and intense..."

"It's not all that surprising," Aileen said thoughtfully. "Ariane and Evan were much the same, and Severus was always fighting with Lupin and his Gryffindor friends when we were children. Love and hate are flip sides of the same coin, I suppose."

"He broke it off with me about two months ago," Narcissa said miserably. "Right around the time I must've gotten pregnant, come to think of it. Said that we had no future, so there was no point in continuing our affair."

"Are you sure he doesn't know?" Aileen asked suspiciously.

"Yes, I'm sure," Narcissa replied. "He's an honorable man, in his own way. He wouldn't just brush off his responsibility. He'd either marry me even if he didn't want to, or demand that I get rid of the child so as not to bring another werewolf into the world. I'm not really sure which."

"And you don't want to take the chance that he might want you to abort the baby?" Aileen asked. "Or are you too proud to let him marry you if it's only out of a sense of duty?"

"It's not just that," Narcissa said, sounding distraught. "It's Draco--how would he react, not just to having a werewolf stepfather, but to a half-brother or sister? He still hasn't gotten over losing Lucius..."

"Draco is nearly a man now," Aileen said impatiently. "You need to stop spoiling him as if he were a child. He won't like it, but he'll just have to deal with it. It's much more important for you to have a husband and a father for your baby than it is to spare his feelings being hurt."

"It's more than just hurt feelings," Narcissa argued tearfully. "I murdered his father in front of his eyes! How is he supposed to get over that? How do you think your son would have reacted if you had killed Liam in front of him?"

Aileen managed to refrain from saying that her husband wasn't a coward like Lucius Malfoy who would sacrifice his son to save his own skin. Which was probably a good thing, because Narcissa burst into tears again. "Oh Aileen, I know I can't keep this baby, but I don't want to give it up, either!"

Aileen spent most of the afternoon comforting a hysterical Narcissa, thinking to herself that it was going to be a long seven months. But she promised her friend that she would somehow find a way to help Narcissa have the baby in secret and find a good home for it afterwards, although she still wasn't sure how she was going to accomplish that. She was of half a mind to track down Cyril Diggory herself and force him to marry Narcissa, using an Imperius Curse if necessary, but Narcissa had enough presence of mind to demand, "You mustn't say anything to Lukas, Aileen, promise me! Your word as a Slytherin!"

"I promise," Aileen said reluctantly. However, she did notice that Narcissa had not said anything about speaking to someone other than Diggory, and like all Slytherins, Aileen was very good at adhering to the letter and not necessarily the spirit of an agreement. She would have to be very careful, of course; she couldn't entrust this secret to just anyone, but if an opportunity arose to help Narcissa out of her predicament, she would certainly take it..

Chapter 130

Back to Always Index.