Aftermaths, Part 65

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.
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"You can use the staff room to talk," Dumbledore told Lukas and the Ames family. "I'll have the house-elves send up some tea."

When Selima would have followed them, Lupin said firmly, "This is a family matter. We should give them some privacy."

Lukas looked a little alarmed at the prospect of being left alone with his long-lost relatives. "You had might as well come along, Lupin. It's your and Snape's meddling that got me into this mess in the first place. And I'd prefer to have Lady Snape where I can see her, rather than have her shouting my parentage to the entire wizarding world."

Lupin smiled. "As you wish, Lukas."

So they all went to the staff room and sat there in silence until the house-elves brought some tea and left. "Er...so how is it that you came to be involved in all this, Professor Snape, Lady Selima?" Robert asked.

"Anya Gravenor Diggory was my best friend," Selima said. "You probably don't remember, Cyril, but your mother brought you to Snape Manor a few times, and you played with Severus as a child."

Lupin nearly choked in an attempt to muffle his laughter when he tried to picture the two of them as children playing together. Both of them glared at him. "I don't remember that," Snape said sourly. "Though I do remember Anya Diggory coming to visit alone."

"Well, you were only two or three at the time," Selima told him. "Anya stopped bringing Cyril when he was older because she said he was ill. But it was the lycanthropy, wasn't it? And since it happened when you were so young, Cyril, it must have been inherited lycanthropy. It's extremely unlikely that a sheltered toddler living in a pureblood mansion would be bitten by a werewolf."

Lukas inclined his head. "You are correct, Lady Selima, though I wish you would stop calling me 'Cyril'. I know that Severus talked to you about a friend that he believed was a pureblood going by an alias, but tell me, how did you know it was me?"

"It was hardly difficult to figure out," Selima said, with a hint of condescension. "Severus doesn't have many friends, so I figured it must be someone connected with either the school or the Order of the Phoenix. I did some research, looking through back issues of the Daily Prophet, and I came across your picture in one of them. I would have figured it out months ago, except that I was so furious with Severus for publicizing his relationship with the werewolf--"

"There are two of us here, Lady Selima," Lukas pointed out with ironic humor. "And I'd prefer that no one mistook me for Snape's lover."

"Excuse me, with Professor Lupin," Selima corrected herself smoothly, "that I never read any of the articles that Rita Skeeter did on the werewolves; I threw them all away. But when I saw your picture, I immediately recognized you, and it all made sense--the mysterious illness, why you never went to Hogwarts, and why your family might try to get rid of you and your father--"

"Cyril," Gwendolyn said urgently, "do you really believe that your father was murdered? Surely...surely Amos could never have done such a thing..."

"Perhaps not Amos, but your parents," Selima suggested, as Gwendolyn looked horrified and Robert glared at her. "Did you never hear the rumors, child? No, I suppose no one would have mentioned them to you, but among the Slytherin families, there was talk of how the elder Diggorys might have replaced their heir with one that they felt was more suitable. Everyone knows that they hated Cynric."

"They didn't hate him!" Gwendolyn protested. "They didn't see eye-to-eye, and they fought a lot, but he was still their son and they loved him!" She turned to Lukas, looking less certain of herself and said in a small voice, "Didn't they?"

Lukas hesitated, then sighed and said, "I will tell you the whole story, and you can judge for yourself. The Diggorys had always been Hufflepuffs, and your parents frowned upon my father when he went into Slytherin. They were even less pleased when he took a Slytherin wife who came from a family who had a reputation for practicing the Dark Arts. But still, the situation was tolerable, and they didn't consider replacing him as heir until my lycanthropy began manifesting itself when I was four years old."

"Is that how inherited lycanthropy works?" Snape asked Lupin. "It doesn't show up immediately?"

Lupin shrugged. "Not a great deal of research has been done on the subject. I first began showing signs of it when I was about that age."

"My father read every text on lycanthropy that he could find," Lukas said. "His research indicated that the age varies, but the change usually takes place between ages three to five. Scholars speculate that this is because an infant's body would be unable to survive the stress of the transformation."

Gwendolyn shuddered and Tristan's face went white. "If...if it's inherited," Tristan stammered, "could I have it, too?"

Lukas shook his head. "No, Tristan, you are safe. If you had lycanthropy, it would have manifested itself by now."

"Thank Merlin," Robert sighed. "Do you know which side of the family it came from?"

Lukas smiled mirthlessly. "The Gravenors and the Diggorys fought bitterly over that very question. The Diggorys blamed the Gravenors, saying it was because their ancestors had meddled with Dark Magic in the past, and the Gravenors swore that there were no werewolves in their family tree, so it must be from the Diggory line. My parents didn't give a damn where it came from; they just wanted to cure me, or at least find a way to ease my symptoms." He closed his eyes for a moment, and a look of sorrow and pain filled his face. "My parents loved me," he said softly. "They refused to lock me up out of sight in some institution as my paternal grandparents suggested. My mother's father said I ought to be disposed of, the way one might drown a kitten or puppy who is born deformed." Gwendolyn shuddered again. "My father's parents threatened to disown him, but he said that if they did, he would tell everyone the reason behind it, and that he would tell everyone that the lycanthropy came from the Diggory side of the family. He didn't care so much about being the heir, but he wanted to shelter me from the prejudice I would encounter if my condition were made public, and he needed the Diggory fortune to find a cure. Amos was right about one thing: my father spent a great deal of money on research and cures, most of which led nowhere or turned out to be false. He was so desperate that he couldn't bear to pass up any chance of curing me, no matter how slim. He was cheated many times, but never twice by the same person. My father was as ruthless as any Slytherin, and the people who cheated him always seemed to disappear mysteriously or meet untimely ends."

Gwendolyn went pale, and Lukas gave her an apologetic smile. "I am sorry to ruin the image you had of your brother, Gwen, but what he did, he did for love of me. I will stop now, if you like, and you can go back to your family and forget about all this. The story I have to tell only gets uglier as it goes on. I have seen and done terrible things, Gwen."

Gwendolyn swallowed hard, and seemed to gather up her nerve. "No, I want to know the truth, no matter how bad it is. I want to know everything."

"Perhaps Tristan should not hear this, though," Robert said, frowning.

"No!" Tristan said. "I...I want to know, too. Otherwise...I'll always wonder about it. And if Master Bleddri really is my cousin, I...I want to know about him."

Robert sighed unhappily, but Gwendolyn said, "Let him stay."

"My father had to conduct these transactions in disguise and under a false name, of course, in order to keep his bargain with my grandparents, that he would keep my lycanthropy a secret if they did not disown him," Lukas continued. "And also because many of the potions and drugs he bought were illegal, and could only be obtained on the black market. A few of them were even effective; one was a crude precursor of the Wolfsbane Potion that contained a small amount of aconite. Unfortunately, it was difficult to get the dosage right. Too little had no effect, and too much made me violently ill." Lukas grimaced. "Some of the research, I am sorry to say, was conducted on captive werewolves imprisoned in Azkaban or in institutions like the one my grandparents wanted to put me in. My father felt guilty about it, but he would make any sacrifice, pay any price to find a cure that would save me from the fate of those other werewolves. And he rationalized that if he found a cure, in the end it would benefit all werewolves." Lukas sighed and shook his head. "I'm not sure that I would have done the same thing in his place, but how can I hold it against him when he did it for my sake? He and my mother never treated me with scorn or fear or resentment, even during my transformations. When I was very small, during the first few years of my lycanthropy, he would even hold me." There was a wistful, nostalgic look in Lukas's yellow-green eyes.

"Merlin's Beard!" Snape exclaimed. "In your wolf form? With no Wolfsbane Potion?"

"Well, I was just a cub, not a full-grown wolf, but yes. He dosed me with Sleeping Potion and wore heavy, warded robes and gloves for protection, but it was still probably a reckless and stupid thing to do." Lukas smiled. "But my father was always a bold and reckless man. My mother used to say it was the reason she fell in love with him, even as it drove her to distraction at the same time." His smile faded. "And that is the reason why I've never been sure whether his death was an accident or not. One of his contacts sent him a message late one night, claiming to have found a potential cure. It was a stormy night, with thunder and lightning, and my mother begged him not to go out or to at least wait till morning, but the contact said that the sale must be made that night, claiming that the seller was on the run from the law, and was planning to flee the country. So my father left to meet his contact, and that was the last time I saw him alive."

"I never knew," Gwendolyn said, tears streaming down her face. "I never knew why he went out that night. I never suspected that you were a werewolf..."

"Of course not," Lukas said. "That too, was part of the bargain my father made with his parents. You were just a child, and they wanted you to be sheltered from that knowledge."

"That's why they didn't like me playing with you when we were children," Gwendolyn whispered. "That's why they didn't let me visit your house very often."

"They were afraid that I might bite you and pass on the curse," Lukas said with a bitter smile, "even though it can only be transmitted in wolf form, and my parents always kept me safely locked up during the full moon. But your parents had to let you visit your brother and nephew occasionally, or people would have become curious and started gossiping and speculating about the reason why they didn't, and sometimes Father would bring me over to see you just to spite his parents."

"Why did they pretend that you died?" Gwendolyn asked. "And where did you go after that?"

"The Gravenors and the Diggorys saw a perfect opportunity to get rid of their inconvenient werewolf grandson," Lukas replied. "They came up with the idea of saying that I had died in the crash with my father, and used closed caskets at the funeral, saying that the bodies were too badly mangled to be displayed. My coffin, of course, was empty. My mother was nearly catatonic with grief, and in no condition to object. The Gravenors still felt some affection for their daughter, or perhaps they knew that she would raise a fuss if they tried to kill me, so they smuggled me back to the family estate in Wales with my mother. They put us in a little shack, a hovel really, on the edge of the estate, out in the countryside where there were no neighbors or villagers to see us. They sent food and clothing over regularly, but no one ever came to visit us, and we weren't allowed to come up to the mansion."

"Did Anya truly die of grief?" Selima asked softly.

Lukas shrugged. "I suppose so. The shack was drafty and, when it rained, leaky, and my mother caught a cold that she didn't take care of and it escalated into pneumonia. But she was already frail and listless before that, because she barely ate, and then only when I begged and pleaded her to. Mostly she wept and mourned my father. From time to time she would come to her senses enough to apologize for not being a better mother. She would caress my face and say that she was sorry she was so weak, and that I must be strong enough for the both of us. She finally died three years after my father did. In a way, though I mourned her, it came as something of a relief."

"I am sorry, Cyril," Gwendolyn wept. "I am so sorry! How you and your mother suffered--if I had known, I would have done something to help you, I swear it!"

"It's not your fault, Gwennie," Lukas said kindly. "You were just a child; you didn't know."

"But Amos knew?"

"Yes," Lukas replied quietly. "He helped your parents and the Gravenors fake my death."

"Oh God," Gwendolyn said, and wept hysterically. Tristan stared at her helplessly, and Robert put his arm around his wife and tried to comfort her.

There was a long silence, and Lupin finally broke it by asking, "What happened after that?"

"I knew that the Gravenors wouldn't scruple to kill me once they found out my mother was dead," Lukas said. "It didn't surprise me that my Uncle Anwir eventually turned out to be a Death Eater. So I packed some clothes and food, and took what little money we had, along with my mother's jewelry, and fled. Eventually I made my way to London. I sold my mother's jewels and lived off that for awhile, but the money didn't last long, and it was difficult to find places to hide during the full moon. I started stealing and scavenging to survive, and eventually an older thief caught me poaching in his territory--I had been a sheltered pureblood child, and had no idea that each part of the city was controlled by a certain thief or gang of thieves, and that one didn't operate in someone else's territory without paying a toll. But I was lucky, because instead of killing me, that thief took me under his wing." Lukas smiled a little, a strange mixture of both bitterness and affection in his eyes. "He spared my life, you see, because he was a werewolf and recognized that I was one of his kind. He taught me how to survive on the street, and how to find secure places to hide during the full moon. He taught me how to make use of my wolf senses and yet hide my lycanthropy from strangers. In time, I became strong enough to stand on my own, and I began seeking out others of my kind, trying to help them as my mentor helped me."

"You began forming a pack," Lupin said quietly.

Lukas nodded. "Always before, werewolves lived alone, with the constant fear of their secret being discovered. I thought we would be stronger together, supporting and protecting one another. And...I was lonely; wolves are social creatures and not meant to live alone. If nothing else, we would have companions that we would not have to keep secrets from."

"I am so sorry, Cyril," Gwendolyn said. "I can't make up for what my parents and Amos did to you, but I'll do what I can to help you now. You are the rightful heir to the Diggory estate, not Amos, and not Tristan, and I will support your claim."

Lukas shook his head impatiently. "I meant what I told Amos earlier. I don't want the title. Cyril Diggory is dead; I am Lukas Bleddri now." He stared directly into his aunt's eyes, and she flinched a little, because his yellow-green eyes looked feral and wolfish at the moment. "I have been a thief and a smuggler, Gwendolyn," he said softly. "I have killed men. I once stabbed a man who tried to rape one of my pack members. During the final battle, I turned into a wolf and tore out a Death Eater's throat."

Tristan stared at him in horror and Robert shouted, "Good God, man! How can you say such things in front of a child?!"

"That is the life I have led these past twenty years, Gwendolyn," Lukas said, ignoring him. "I do not belong in your world anymore."

"But Cyril--"

Lukas sighed, a pained look on his face. "I really wish you would stop calling me that. Please, I go by the name 'Lukas' now."

"Lukas, then," Gwendolyn said. "Whatever you have done, you are still family."

"My only family is my pack of werewolves," Lukas said, then felt a little guilty when Gwendolyn looked hurt.

"I would not have thought that Cynric's son would turn out to be such a coward," Selima said in a cold voice.

"Mother!" Snape cried in alarm, rising to his feet to step between his mother and Lukas when the werewolf snarled and bared his teeth. "Have you gone mad? You don't provoke a werewolf that way!"

"I'm not afraid of him," Selima said coolly.

"Well, you should be!"

"Sit down, Severus," Lupin said. "Lukas isn't going to hurt her." He gave the other werewolf a pointed look.

Lukas growled sulkily and slouched down in his chair a little. "If I bit everyone who annoyed me, England would be overrun with werewolves," he grumbled. Snape slowly returned to his seat, still gazing at Lukas suspiciously.

"You can change your name," Selima said. "You can run and hide, but that will not change who you are: Cyril Lukas Gravenor Diggory, heir--no, rightful Lord to the Diggory estate. Why are you so quick to cast aside the inheritance your father was fighting so hard for you to keep? You could even be Lord of two estates! After Anwir died, one of his cousins eventually inherited the Gravenor estate, but as Anya's son, your claim would be greater--"

"Why would I want to live among the people who are responsible for my parents' deaths, indirectly at least, even if they didn't actually murder them?" Lukas demanded. "My father wouldn't have had to sneak out in the middle of the night seeking a cure for lycanthropy if it hadn't been for the pureblood prejudice against werewolves, and my mother wouldn't have caught pneumonia if her family hadn't stuck us in that leaky shack because they were ashamed of me! For that matter, she wouldn't be dead if my father were still alive! Why would I want to live among people who regard me as a beast and a monster? And why the hell would you want a werewolf to become the head of a pureblood family, Lady Selima? From what I've heard, you're as snobbish as any of your peers!"

"Yes, Mother," Snape said. "He raises an interesting point. Did you not say that I was disgracing the family name by taking Lupin as my lover?"

"That's different," Selima said calmly. "I certainly wouldn't want Cyril as a son-in-law." Both Snape and Lukas stared at her suspiciously, trying to decide whether or not she had just made a joke, and Lupin snickered a little. "Perhaps if he were a Snape, I wouldn't be so eager to see him take the title. However, he is a Diggory, so I don't have to worry about werewolf blood commingling with ours."

"So as long as it's someone else's problem, it's fine," Snape said sarcastically.

"Exactly," Selima said with a straight face. "Besides, Anya was my dearest friend, and I was fond of Cynric as well, and I would like to see their son restored to his rightful place as Lord." Snape stared at her incredulously, wondering if he had really heard his mother admitting to a sentimental emotion. Then she smiled maliciously and added, "And I would like to see Amos cast down and humiliated for usurping the title."

That was a little more in character, and Snape breathed a small sigh of relief. Lukas, however, scowled at Selima. "I hate the purebloods," he said venomously. "I hate their narrow-mindedness, their arrogance, their hypocrisy."

"By rejecting the title, you are doing exactly what they want," Selima pointed out, to his consternation. "Removing your unwanted presence from their sight, acknowledging that you are not good enough to be part of their world."

"You want me to fight for the Lordship out of sheer spite?" Lukas asked in disbelief.

"And she calls ME petty?" Snape muttered under his breath.

"Why not?" Selima asked with a smile. "Would it not give you pleasure to take a small measure of revenge against them?" When Lukas hesitated, she added, "If you need a more selfless reason, then what about this? You could use the wealth and resources of the Diggory and Gravenor estates to help those werewolves you claim to care so much about."

Lukas looked taken aback by that thought, and Snape exclaimed, "Merlin's Beard, Mother! Are you, Selima Snape, the epitome of the pureblood elite, actually suggesting that he use his family's wealth to aid a pack of werewolves? Your pureblood friends would consider that sedition!"

"Anya, Cynric, and Vanessa were the only real friends I had," Selima said, "and they are all dead now. Besides, as you pointed out, you have already disgraced the family name by taking up with Professor Lupin. There's not much more I can do to ruin it further. It's odd, but there's a certain sense of freedom in that..."

Snape stared at his mother, feeling as if his world had just been turned upside down; it was as if Harry Potter had suddenly turned into a model student or Draco Malfoy had started campaigning for house-elf rights. He wondered if the recent stress of dealing with his father's death had driven his mother mad, or if Lupin had managed to corrupt her the way he had corrupted Snape's Slytherins. He looked over and saw Lupin grinning, and hissed, "Damn it, Lupin, it's not funny!"

"I...I can't," Lukas said weakly, still looking stunned. "It's impossible...no one would ever let me get away with that...no one would ever allow a werewolf to become head of a prominent pureblood family..."

"Werewolves are equal to humans under the law now," Lupin reminded him. "If you are interested in regaining your inheritance, you should contact Morrigan De Lacy. She's the lawyer who arranged Theodore's adoption for us and had the Rosier estate returned to Dylan." Lupin smiled. "I can't speak for her, of course, but I think she would find your case quite interesting."

"I'm sure she would," Snape muttered. "She has an almost Gryffindorish penchant for stirring things up."

"But it would be unfair to Tristan to take the title from him," Lukas said uncertainly. "Even if Amos took the title illicitly, Tristan has done nothing wrong."

"The title is yours by right," Gwendolyn said quietly. "We won't object." Robert looked as if he wasn't quite sure he agreed with that, and glanced over at his son.

"I...I don't know what to think," Tristan stammered. "It's still hard to believe that Master Bleddri is related to us."

"It's a lot to take in at once," Lupin said gently. "Perhaps all of you should think things over before you make any hasty decisions."

"Yes," Robert agreed quickly. "That sounds practical." Selima frowned at him.

Something occurred to Snape, and he asked Gwendolyn curiously, "Didn't you see any pictures of Bleddri...er...Cyril...in the Daily Prophet before this?"

"Don't call me 'Cyril,'" Lukas growled.

Gwendolyn shook her head. "We haven't read it much ever since they printed those lies about Cedric's death. And after the war ended, Amos urged me not to read it at all, saying that it was full of inflammatory propaganda and lies...oh Merlin. He probably saw that picture of Cyril--Lukas--and was afraid I'd see it and recognize him. He had urged me not to send Tristan to Hogwarts because he didn't approve of Dumbledore hiring werewolves..."

"It was a certain werewolf he didn't approve of," Lukas said grimly.

"He was an idiot if he thought he could cover it up forever," Snape said. "If you really resemble your father that much, someone was bound to notice eventually."

"I can't believe that Amos lied to me all these years," Gwendolyn said, shaking her head sadly. "I don't know if I can ever forgive him for that. I loved your father so much, Cyril--sorry, I mean Lukas. He was much older than me, and he seemed so handsome and brave and dashing and...well, grown-up, and he was always kind to me and never treated me like an annoying little sister. I idolized him, I suppose. And I loved you, too." She smiled at Lukas. "In a way, Cynric was more like a favorite uncle than my brother, and you were more like a sibling or cousin than my nephew." She reached out to caress his cheek with one hand. "I still love you," she said quietly, "even if you are a werewolf, even if you call yourself by a different name now, even if you have killed people. No matter what you have done in the past, or what you do in the future, you are my dear nephew and childhood friend, and I will always love you."

Lukas looked pale and shaken and there were tears glittering in his eyes. "You don't even know me," he said in a hoarse voice.

"I know that you have been hailed as a hero of the war," Gwendolyn said. "I know that Albus Dumbledore trusts you. I know that my son likes you. And I know that you are family. That is enough for me. But I would like to get to know you better...Lukas. I would like to get to know the man that you are now. May I come see you from time to time?"

It took several tries for Lukas to get his voice working again. He cleared his throat, took a sip of tea, then finally said gruffly, "Well, you are the mother of one of my students. I can't stop you from coming by the school if you wish."

Gwendolyn smiled at him tenderly, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you, Lukas," she said quietly. Then she got up, and her husband and son followed her. She paused in the doorway and said, "Please consider taking up the title, Lukas. It is yours by right." She waited for a few moments, but he remained silent, and the Ames family left.

Selima was smiling triumphantly, and Lukas growled, "Oh, stop looking so smug, Lady Selima! I haven't agreed to take the title yet. I still don't think it's a good idea; Amos is bound to fight me on it, and it's my word against his that he did anything wrong. He could pretend that his parents faked my death without his knowledge, or more likely, that the Gravenors did it alone--all of my grandparents are dead now, and unable to confirm or deny whatever story he comes up with. He could claim that I'm an impostor. Who knows? He might even claim that the Death Eaters were behind it all. Hero of the war or not, people are more likely to believe a respected pureblood Ministry official than they are to believe a werewolf."

"You have Dumbledore's support," Lupin pointed out, "and mine, and Severus's, and Lady Selima's. That counts for a great deal as well."

"You can fight for the title and win, and you know it," Selima told Lukas. "You're just looking for an excuse not to."

"I can see why you left home," Lukas said to Snape, who smiled a little.

"Indeed," he said dryly.

"How am I going to deal with Tristan in class?" Lukas asked Lupin.

"He's in shock right now," Lupin said, "but I think he'll come around. He does like you; maybe he'll even be glad that you're related when the shock wears off."

"Maybe," Lukas said doubtfully. "But he's also fond of Amos, who will likely try to poison his mind against me."

"But he also loves his mother," Lupin said with a smile, "who clearly loves you very much."

"She loves the memory of my father and her childhood playmate," Lukas said quietly. "It's not the same thing. Gwen is a sweet girl, but she's led a very sheltered life. I can't see anything good coming of this; it's much more likely to bring her more misery."

"She's not a little girl anymore," Lupin said. "I believe she's stronger than you think she is. She strikes me as being very...determined."

"If you had not interfered--" Lukas said to Selima in an accusing voice, but she cut him off.

"She would have found out eventually, anyway," Selima said. "Her son is a student here; you couldn't possibly evade her for seven years. And she would have realized who you were the moment she came face-to-face with you." Lukas sighed irritably. "I won't apologize for meddling in your life, Cyril. I owe it to your parents, who would want to see you take your rightful inheritance."

"Don't speak for my parents," Lukas growled, a dangerous glint in his eyes, but Selima did not seem intimidated.

"You have been out of society for a long time," she observed in a cool voice. "We may need to polish your manners a little."

"Mother!" Snape cried, while Lupin burst out laughing.

Lukas glared at his fellow werewolf for a long moment, then one corner of his mouth curved up a little, and he let out a little snort of laughter. "Yes," he said sarcastically, "and you might have to teach me which fork to use at dinner, too."

Selima gave the two werewolves annoyed look. "I thought Professor Lupin's childish sense of humor was a Gryffindor trait, but perhaps it's a werewolf trait as well." She pushed back her chair and rose to her feet. "We ought to go check on Dylan now, Severus, and then see if your colleagues have discovered the source of the hex."

"Yes, Mother," Snape said, his face growing serious now as he recalled the recent threat to his son.

"And by the way, Cyril..."

"Yes, Lady Selima?" Lukas asked in a resigned voice.

Selima hesitated, then said quietly, "I'm glad to know that you're alive." Then she turned and walked out of the room as Snape gaped at her in shock.

"My mother?" he asked incredulously. "Showing a hidden streak of sentimentality?"

"I told you that your mother wasn't a monster, Severus," Lupin said cheerfully, then linked his arm through Snape's and followed after Selima. Still in a state of shock, Snape meekly allowed Lupin to drag him along without even protesting about Lupin "pawing" him in public as he usually did.

Lukas sighed and shook his head. Actually, he did have a vague memory of playing with a sullen dark-haired, hook-nosed little boy who didn't like sharing his toys. And although his childhood memories of Lady Selima were vague as well, he did remember that she was his mother's best friend, which was why he had been trying to evade her in the stands at the Quidditch match, realizing that she might recognize his resemblance to his father. He should never have come to Hogwarts, but Cynric Diggory had been dead for over a quarter of a century, and he had thought it would be safe enough, as the students and most of their parents were too young to remember him. Lady Selima had been estranged from her son, and Lukas had thought there would be little chance of encountering her at Hogwarts...until she sent the Howler summoning her son home to see his dying father. Even then, he thought everything would be all right as long as he stayed away from her and the other relatives of his students who might remember his father. But Dumbledore had ordered him to attend the game, and Lady Selima had marched into the teachers' stand instead of sitting in the Slytherin section like she was supposed to.

Lukas remembered his father once saying jokingly that all the Snapes were stubborn as mules, and his mother had scolded him, and then they had both laughed, but now Lukas realized that his father had not really been joking after all. Selima Snape seemed bound and determined to interfere in his life, and he couldn't think of a way to stop her short of biting her. Then he shuddered; no, that was a bad idea--as a wolf, she would probably end up taking over his pack! He sighed and said to the empty room, "I need a drink." Then he got up and headed to his quarters, where he had a bottle of Firewhiskey stashed away for emergencies; if this didn't count as one, he didn't know what did.

 

Part 66