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Chapter Text

“Regular Speech.”

“Other.”

Multiple POV

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“Love in its essence is spiritual fire.”

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Hogsmeade Village, November 10th, 1979

The last place to spend a quiet, sprightly night was Hog's Head Inn. A broad-shouldered man halted in front of the tar door. It was hardy and greased, much like his shoulder-length hair. With a swivel of long black robes, he looked to the sky. Trickles of rainfall stumbled on and off his protruded nose. He saw the sky flash and the sweltering fog precipitate further along the cobbled lane. 

There had also been incessant rain, dousing the brick-rimmed hideaway that was Spinner’s End for a month now. Since it harboured on the coastal side of a muggle province, housing and billings were cut out with the telephone lines that snared from roofs to shillings. The thistle crowns acted as connectors to sinewy black tarp wires. The man hoped the worst was over in the coming days. The stream following the river canals that had crested around his house was slowly drying out. The surrounding land below had concrete tracks of white and crisp brown laminated on the sides of the drab stone and cinder blocks. Since the flood damage was steep, he didn’t want to pay out of his inheritance. He doubled down on a grand plan to escape, going from the turbulence to where he was now. Back in Scotland—back to Hogwarts.

The man hated rain. It was the soliloquy of his life, the sound of thunder. Lightning never touches the same spot twice, yet for him, it did unfailingly on every path he treads. He turned to the door, pausing in an abated sigh. Weather permitting, he’d ask for a room with a four-poster bed with ivy-shaded sheets. Only for him and a bottle of Ogden’s Old—to set the mood, of course. He imagined the possibilities.

For one, he could end it all.

Wind passing through his fringes brushed him as he latched onto the stern doorknob. When he wrung the metal, it creaked. The storm shifted like his worn feet, and the billow of his cloak followed him inside. The deafening noises of patrons in the bar overshadowed the chiming jingle from the doorbell as he entered, greeted by the sickly taxidermy of a hog’s head.

Heads symbolized many things: spirituality, wisdom and death when vacant of flesh. They carried faces, and with those tagged along names. Since he didn’t have one to share, most ignored him. The creaking steps he took felt like an eternity, asking for him to be airborne. Cobwebs and wet muck lined the floors from under weathered dragon hide as he travelled to the bar and sat on a lonely stool. His eyes were ajar at the barkeep approaching him.

“What’ll it be, Snape?” The embittered old man asked. His grapevine beard hung over his abdomen in ribbed coils. The window rattled when the sky flickered outside. It lit over the mountainous ash-green gallery of antique bottles and kegs behind him. Aged, stacked high against the walls of the… establishment. Their insides had muddled into an alloy of stewing liquor stains.

“Firewhiskey,” Severus Snape said, digging into his pocket for change. He sifted through the icy touch of silver as a finger grazed a sickle. Crackling his ears, thunder promised him closure. This was it.

His chance to put the nail in the coffer. The fragrance of kerosene and lamp fluid were vagabonds in his nostrils, electromagnetic wavelengths pricking his nose hairs. The lack of wizardry in the inn ensured the sombre promise of uncleanliness.

He couldn’t move his lips anymore. It was all bludgeoning into him like a brigade of sledgehammers. Twenty-eight days had passed since that cataclysmic day when Regulus Black had died. Normally, he would cheer if those lunatics put themselves to rest. Only he was a great friend to one of them. Reg was a remarkable man. No matter how broken on the inside, the grey-eyed boy had a purpose. At the very least, a goal.

Severus did nothing, absolutely nothing when Lily—his Lily had married that belligerent sycophant, James Potter. It was all bathing in her, pervaded with her scent. The lower he went, the farther she carried him. And when he got to her, he found nothing. Her old kisses were scarecrows, flailing in the breeze of the midday shower and fog. Scarred ribs and a murder of crows slit into the tempered intensity of her acid tongue.

“That’ll be all.”

Severus hoped that his irritability was not on display. Taking out and placing three sickles on the counter, he drank his tension. This could be it. He could not process the splicing alteration in the air.

Ask for a room, nitwit. He condemned himself, his face scrounged and frantic.

“I’d like a room.”

“What for? Thought you enjoyed being on your lonesome?” Shoulders stiff, Aberforth palmed the closest bottle of Ogden’s. He poured the negligible amount of whiskey into a glass like a blacksmith would masonry and placed the drink before Severus.

Severus bit down on his tongue, “nevermind.”

The barkeep gave him a once-over, gauging him. It was a familiar sight. Dour eyes roaming, a lazy grunt here and there. Most of his peers knew the owner of the pub. Or an inn, as most called it. Severus was not one of those people. He prided himself on that little tidbit. Because only in desperate times would he ever enter this place.

But alas, this was a desperate time.

Not wanting to further risk the man’s careful watch, Severus lugged his sleeve closer to his palm.

“Right then. No funny business,” Aberforth said. Similar to his brother, he looked weathered on his exterior. Severus verified this from his back as he trudged away.

Most of the senior wizards of this epoch were like that. Having seen a full-out war with two Dark Lords. One of which was about to take what was left of the feeble resistance. Severus saw the old man as he was: not caring for the past or the future. Aberforth Dumbledore was living in the present, leaning back onto the wall next to the ash-green bottles, holding his world together in an aging grip.

He was contented to be on the winning side. Yet, he mulled over this ruse. If he was actually happy with his decisions, why would he be here? Why would he be sitting alone in a ruckus-packed bar of a pseudo-inn, contemplating his self-imposed murder?

He peered at the drink. Boisterous guffaws and vulgar profanities from every direction asked him a question—a harmless inquiry about something so deep-seated in his nerves.

Was this how he wanted it to end?

He closed himself off to all noises and slid his thumb across the frosted glass, brooding in reminiscence. Lily and he were so close. They even saw each other for the entirety of two months. Severus cursed himself in the mirror every morning for calling the only woman he’d ever loved a filthy term such as ‘mudblood.’. It was unsightly.

He didn’t mind it, though. He thought back to that day. The public humiliation and anger that flitted across James Potter’s face when Lily did not come running to his arms. He saw that part of his life with a kind of smug fondness.

Severus let the flaming taste drown his esophagus. The agony was delicious. At the bottom of the tumbler, in the circular depth, he couldn’t reach. A shallow drip of amber that was not eager to slide down made him feel remorse. He had joined the Death Eaters for a singular purpose: to fit in where he didn’t belong. No matter who he associated himself with, nobody in his circle cared about him.

Seeing his now empty glass, Aberforth returned and placed another drink in front of him. “You look like shit,” he said before turning to his other customers. Rowdy as they were, they provided enough ambience for him to indulge in whatever was left of his brief escapism.

The resin-tinted liquid looked back at him as Severus recollected his brooding thoughts. It struck again. The universe faltered in meandering thoughts. Through his waning eyes, there was confusion and an ache. Coursing through his body, his soul was in battle with fever.

All this hate, all this grief he’s set this glass throne upon, was at its tipping point. Of all the beauty in this world, his idea of it was inconsequential and materialistic. If it made him a better person, he wouldn't crave it for the rest of his life.

Memories, like the downpour surging through brick and cinder, claimed him. In Severus’s seventh year at Hogwarts, James Potter was chosen to be the head boy over him, and Lily also became the head girl that year. She had separated herself from most of her friends except for the Marauders, the cusp of immaturity portrayed by actual human beings. It was like they lived to torture him.

James Potter had taken an interest in Regulus that year, trying to befriend him as he did when they were younger. Regulus always had a demented look in his eyes, Black Madness, they called it—but that wasn’t it. They were like that from the fleeting glimpses others gave him. The pity, the scrutiny he faced under his parents’ suffocating control over his life. Even with Severus or his friend Barty, the boy was unhappy.

The passing glances between Potter and the younger of the two Blacks were unusual. Lily noted that and decided. After her bold declaration of love, Potter had never glanced in Regulus’s direction again. Like a dagger thrown through his hopes, Regulus was never more miserable.

Abrupt and forceful, the doorway opened with a clang, and the bell rang as Albus Dumbledore traipsed into the pub in a carefree stride, ignoring the commotion made by the regulars. A youthful woman close to Severus’ age walked in beside the supreme warlock with an unassuming disposition. She had tawny brown hair and monstrous annular glasses that augmented her enormous eyes.

“Abe, how are you, my brother?” Dumbledore said as he came up to Aberforth and began chattering about. The Headmaster of Hogwarts was a big title. A prestige held only by Dumbledore for over fifty years. The elites of wizarding Europe grovelled at his feet for recognition.

Aberforth gave his brother a gilded expression of utter disapproval. “I ain’t running a brothel, you ingrate! Take that business elsewhere,” the vexed old man berated before turning to leave.

The patrons had stopped to gawk, and one of them even puked onto the floor. This caused a chain reaction, which Severus was about to reciprocate. The woman flinched back when some of the bile reached her flat shoes.

“No, no, none of that.” The headmaster softened each syllable as they whirled out. “We’re only here to interview.”

Aberforth raised a rough brow, “what for? Ran outta space in your little old castle?”

Interview what, exactly? For a job? Would it have been better to conduct it in the school? Where all his security was, overlooking this village? Albus Dumbledore was an idiot or negligent of common sense.

“Not at all. I believe a screening should be held before I allow a grown adult to enter a school full of children, wouldn’t you agree?”

Albus Dumbledore was the headmaster. The man had direct apparating rights and the ability to maintain the wards surrounding the school. He could have just teleported her into his office.

Aberforth, after a long, incremental explanation that fried Severus’s brain from Dumbledore, grudgingly—mind—led them up some stairs into a room.

Perhaps this would be his big break. Severus sat up straight and unhurried. This was the perfect opportunity to get into his Lord’s graces. Maybe then he’d have a name to share. The Dark Lord would be proud, oh so proud. He may even invite Severus to his Inner Circle. Pulling out and pivoting his wand, he cast a wordless forgetfulness charm and watched as the tip gleamed and spewed the room with an opaque flash. Aberforth and the harbingers of the anti-consonant creaks drunk on alcohol, like vermin on rotting curd, were none the wiser.

Muted with a disillusionment spell, Severus slid off the seat. He made it to the stairway and hazarded his movement, the lumber groaning under each step. Aberforth wafted around his table with a long cloth, wiping it down, unaware of Severus’ disappearance.

Step by step, he made it to a lengthy corridor with rooms, presumably for guests. All doors were shut, but a small light shone under one. It blinked like a sunrise behind a gale-bound sea. He knelt down at the doorframe and brought his wand out. The ebony stuttered behind a rusting gold keyhole, expanding from his side. The knob blew out like a balloon but opened outwards like a lotus. He wanted to scoff at the bad privacy but decided against it. May it fall upon the heads of his master’s enemies.

Fearful of being heard, he churned his wand in a hexagonal shape, muttering the words for the silencing charm. His gaze fell through the lotus-shaped tunnel, the woman in the epicentre of his vision.

She stared at the headmaster and spoke, “Thank you for having me, headmaster.”

Dumbledore’s lips widened, and as he did so, the wrinkles on his face stretched to adapt to the change. “No need to thank me, my dear girl. I should be the one thanking you for wanting to educate our youth.”

She held her hands for the headmaster to shake and said, “let me introduce myself. Yes, I am Sybil Trelawney… my great-grandmother was the renowned Cassandra Trelawney, as you knew her?”

“Of course.” The greying man’s eyes twinkled with his response as he melded with her fingers. “I met Cassandra when I was but a teaching assistant. I am mindful of her absence. My deepest condolences.”

“She was quite the woman, gran Cassie.” Trelawney had a piqued way of speaking. “—She died in her dreams… and if you know her well, you know she loved her dreams… that matters, in the end, I believe.”

It was like she was tipsy.

The woman pulled herself to a wistful hush. At Dumbledore’s lack of response, she embarked on a quest to explain herself. “I am more of a Palmistry girl myself.”

This was useless, Severus thought. Why was this sham being held here? In a filthy tavern. Everything about this ‘interview’ made no sense. The man did not bother to ward against eavesdroppers, as he had no problem hearing and viewing their private conversation. He did not know if this would be helpful to his master. Severus realized that anything was better than nothing.

“That will get you places,” Dumbledore said in return. “Let us start off with some basic questions, then?”

“I—of course, I’m just—a day will come when the siren will sing,” Trelawney’s voice sounded, as some would say, lifeless. It was still understandable to Severus, who recoiled at the noise. He stumbled with the grace of a bag of rocks. Muffled by the silencing spell, it was more a bag of feathers.

With a gratified expression, both Dumbledore and Severus studied the woman. Severus noted how her irises turned from a syrupy brown to a chalky white, almost pupilless lustre—not dissimilar to a forest-dwelling Wendigo. This was it! His chance to gain appreciation. But would it be worth it?

“You are doing great, my girl.” Dumbledore was unbothered if she heard him or not.

A deep, mellifluous clangour tailed the woman’s voice. “Once heard, two wretched gods, blood and darkness. Daughter and father will battle in a fitful rage.” Severus was jotting all of this into his mind. He couldn’t believe it.

A prophecy.

“How extraordinary,” Dumbledore said just beneath his breath.

“On the belfry tower, a golden light will shine over the lands below, setting the Otherworld aflame in a scarlet blaze.”

Some dumb prognostication was useless to Severus. But if it was a hindrance to Dumbledore and his Order, Severus could take the chance. Unlike him, Dumbledore seemed to have kept his venerable face calm and forthright as Sybil Trelawney continued to augur.

Severus listened closer as the seer muttered nonsense for a moment.

“A toll chiming in the last moments of Hallow’s Eve will mark the end. The fitful gods will consume the flame. They will end the suffering for the cost of three souls.”

He was processing everything with fast-growing interest. There was more to magic than wand-waving. There were laws. The greatest one is equivalent exchange. To cast forbidden magic, one had to be keen, with an understanding of the Ceremonial Arts. Prices were everything, may it be blood, amnesia, or even living souls.

“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord… The one born to those who have thrice defied him, and one born as the seventh month dies….”

Seventh?

Lily was due at the end of July. No, it couldn’t be. This prophecy sounded like it was addressing her unborn child. But three souls? What could that mean for his Lord? There was an absence when he leaned against the door.

A brisk whistle bled through the open door as smiting gusts rattled Severus on his way to the ground. Dumbledore had opened the door and now had his wand trained on him. Though some may believe muggle tactics beneath them, Severus wasn’t beyond kicking the old man back into the room.

Dumbledore staggered back but drew his wand as fast as lightning—lightning that struck a thousand times over.

Severus stood up, hasty in his evasion, and brought up his own wand. “Depulso!”

White light bounded from the tip of his fine ebony wand and battered into a translucent shield in the colour of beetles. Sinister candour, bleak magic; it was there. It was being cast by the bane of the Dark Lord Grindelwald. The spell deflected off the grim barrier and slung into his slouched body, casting him into the laminated corridor.

He needed to escape, but the headmaster had other plans, so he raised his wand again.

“Accio Severus Snape!”

On the tiles, his legs moved on their own. Dragged by what felt like invisible hands, he slipped. A splinter or two petered into the edge of his fingernails as he clasped the wooden floor, but it was useless. He heaved into the room like a sack of flour.

“Silencio!”

The door closed as Dumbledore’s spell twinkled around the enclosed space. Snape struggled to stand up as he was harshly thrown against the back wall. A shabby strip of old paint stuck to his robes as he stood up, ripping the wallpaper.

“Yet, the Dark Lord will mark one as his equal. They will have powers he knows not… they all must die at the hands of another… for none can live while the others survive….”

Severus prepared to cast a wordless knock-back jinx to push back the headmaster, giving him enough time to escape. That would, however, be the theory.

Albus Dumbledore was beyond the usage of verbal spell-casting, so the blue of the ‘Expulso’ cast by the supreme warlock would be expected. If only Severus had time to think. But no one could genuinely expect anything while in the beast’s maw, especially someone foolish such as he, who dug his own grave the second that knob opened outward, like a lamb to slaughter.

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“Obliviate!”

Albus strode to Snape’s downed form. The white effervescent spell flew from the warlocks’ wand through the man’s ears. He re-aligned Severus’ mind, making him forget most of the prophecy. Also altering what he already knew.

Might as well get the Dark Lord all hot and bothered about his death. Severus was the perfect tool to deliver the message. His eyes’ dilating was enough for Albus to be satisfied.

With a flick of the Elder Wand, he alerted his brother. He stashed it away with a placid grin and pushed Severus out. With the door closed, he wandered back to witness the last verse of the prophecy.

“Three souls will join with Death as the siren sings….”

Trelawney’s eyes returned to their bright brown selves as she took a sharp breath.

“So, what—ah—what were your questions, headmaster?” she asked, ignorant of the past five minutes.

“No, that won’t be necessary. I can see the skill and the outstanding work ethic you already possess.”

Noticing her bewildered expression, he regarded her with well-marked wrinkles.

“I am hiring you, my dear.”

Chapter Text

Godric’s Hollow, May 14th, 1988

Eight years, Severus recounted. Since the death of his Lord, the man had lost his touch. Once a lowly Death Eater climbing the social hierarchy, now an embittered potions professor. To feel what he did before, Severus often traced the mark on his arm. To see regret, but it faded with time. Severus Snape was the winner of a game no one was playing. 

His prize? The death of his favourite person. Once his lover, Lily Evans Potter. Now with a bouquet of Lily of the Valleys, he strode across the long roads of Godric’s Hollow. His black cloak whirled against the breeze as dawn grew closer.

It loomed over his tense form, a cottage that looked more like a small manor, with great walls and cylindrical white pipes running down the sheathing and shingles of the indistinct orange and brown exterior around the roof, stowing up the sides. Severus looked on. On the side, next to the front of the dwelling, was a modest grave and a statuette. An effigy of a couple holding their young child. The ashen face of Lily Potter remained stagnant no matter how much Severus willed her to look at him; she had been beaming at her boy for the last eight years. 

The engraving in front of them stated, ‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.’ 

Was that not satirical, considering that she greeted death with open arms? But Severus knew. He knew it had been his gaffe that she had died. Lily’s cold grace mocked him as he arranged the bouquet on top of his wilted friend’s feet. Just like his Lord. He, too, was wilted, and that a mere child— Lily’s child was the one behind it, languished him more. 

Severus snapped his neck to the boy in Lily’s arm with innate reflex. Harry Potter, the boy who lived. Where was he? Where had Dumbledore taken Lily’s child? A glimmer caught his eyes. Written on a plaque above the Potters’ grave, just a modicum smaller than the lithograph, was a eulogy.

‘This property belongs to The Great Britain Ministry of Magic and is a national landmark under the Minister Cornelius Fudge War Effort Bill of 1982. Section. 3B.’  

Severus should have known. Scoffing, he patted down his robes to liberate himself from dust and stood facing the house. The windows were barred with a criss-cross of black alloy pikes. He remembers the nursery. The blood, the red that covered the plaster and the floor, disappeared into the air as he clutched the remains of her bloodstained clothes. This was a travesty … a blight on Lily Potter’s name. Severus needed to exact this newfound urge—this craving to see that her name would no longer be besmirched by these, as Aberforth called them, ingrates.

“I’ll take care of your boy, Lily...” Severus brought his mental shields together as sentiments threatened to leak from his person. “No matter, the deterrent,” the man spat out at the plaque that was tarnishing what’s left of Lily’s memory. 

A flutter and brouhaha of wings drew the dark-haired man’s attention. An eagle-owl latched on his shoulder elegantly and lifted a scrolled letter secured to its thorny feet. Severus plucked out the note and read it over. It was from Lucius Malfoy, a fellow former Death Eater. Of course, Lucius had been under the Dark Lord’s influence. At least that’s what the man testified in court and what he disbursed Fudge to agree with. The Imperious Curse was a spell that bonded the caster to their victim. Undoubtedly, if the Dark Lord were still alive, Lucius would assume the full wrath of another, more gruesome curse. 

‘Dear Severus, I am sorry to inform you that our dear friend Antonin has been incarcerated for allegedly being a Death Eater. I will testify in his trial if it goes awry. You are because of this Draco’s godfather now. Peace upon you,’

And on the bottom was the man’s classy signature.

‘M. Anc. & Nob. Lucius Abraxas Malfoy, Lord Malfoy’

Second choice, as always. What does a man who is only half worthy compare to a man full of flowing, red, noble blood? Severus silently rasped as he furrowed the parchment away. He’d need the letter for any overdue evidence needed as collateral if things didn’t go smoothly in the adoption procedure if anything were to happen to Lucius or Narcissa.

Classes didn’t start for another four hours. Severus could spend that time reaping more knowledge of where Harry Potter could be. That was the issue; he could be... It was not the best word to describe the situation, but Severus hardly cared. Wherever the boy was, he couldn’t be in that much danger; Albus Dumbledore was his magical guardian, and that should have been enough reason for Severus not to be concerned. The boy was probably living an imperial lifestyle with food, warmth, and shelter fitted for royalty. It was all a possibility, but it was also an improbability. Severus did not know where to begin. All he knew was that Albus Dumbledore was aware of Harry Potter’s location, and Severus needed to know no matter whether the boy was safe or hidden away in a cellar.

Twisting on his feet, Severus apparated from Godric’s Hallow back to the Hogsmeade apparition point. The feeling of being pulled through a tube whelmed his senses, and he let it take over.

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The village was bright and annoying, as usual, but Severus knew the darkness behind it. And the sadness in the locals who’ve lived through the trauma of war. In the evenings, Hogs’ Head Inn would be booming in business from the residents flocking to it at night to tell tales of brutality over mead. Severus resisted the need to drown himself in the sound and scent of alcohol and pushed onwards to the castle, hoping that perhaps he could find out more about Harry Potter’s location from the headmaster.

Bounding through the streets, Severus was greeted by many discomforted faces. The locals knew him as Hogwarts’s overly cruel potions professor with perhaps too little experience. It was constantly like that when he began his career. Seven years ago, it was ultimately the event that brought him out of his grieving period. Lily’s hopes for Severus had died with her. In a blackening memory, he was reminded of Lily as she spoke to him, telling him how proud she was of Severus. How proud she was that he wanted to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts—how Severus wished to follow his dreams.

But those dreams were always blanket truths for the reality behind his growing ire. Severus was a damned man from the very beginning. From his unwanted inception. He’s heard the rumours—the solace the students feel, having asserted Severus to be a creature of the twilight that he sleeps in a coffin. The verity that these students did not understand the harshness of their lies was perpetually amusing to Severus. The students call him a blood-sucker, knowing not the total weight behind the term. It evoked feelings he couldn’t rattle off. Severus can not withstand their words because he sucked blood. He has done it so many times that he can not, from the top of his head, recall how many times he had to lick clean the bruises on his lips in the troughs of the night. His only way to not succumb to hunger was to drink the pain as the dry husks of blood dissolved on his tongue. 

Severus reclaimed his senses and looked past the large galley of shops to the castle that laid the foreground of this land. The entrance to Hogwarts for professors was easy enough; standing in the apparition safe zone, Severus swirled into the sky again. This time, landing gently inside his quarters in the dungeons, Severus was parched. The Slytherin students were still asleep, and the prefects were readying to begin their morning rounds. The sheet-white kettle on his burner heated up when Severus lit it with a flick of his wrist. Severus watched as the kettle started boiling the water inside.

It was old water—water he conjured in the middle of the night. When dusk was his only companion, Severus often searched for it when lost. Not in thought but in memory.  

The professor could never make practical tea; it was his scourge as a potions master. Regardless of how gifted he was at the art, his mastery did not translate well into cooking. The man didn’t know why tea was so hard for him to brew, and if he was being honest, he didn’t understand why Severus was brewing it in the first place, the man should have been drinking a glass of water, but with the steam wafting off the kettle, he was distracted in his musings. It was hard. Living like he knew everything… pretending that he didn’t care… that he did not have emotions. But those were all relative, not to his mindset, but to his thought process. Yes, there was a difference—there was a vast distinction. A disparity between conceptions in his head; significance in his pessimism. Lily was not here… not with him. He should have been like a glass of water, cold, fluid, emotionless… but his mind, the way it staggered, bubbled up with emotions, uncontrollable—boiling. Steam left the tip of the kettle’s muzzle, and Severus waited. He stuck around for something to happen, something condemning, for Lily to knock on his door at Spinner’s End and tell him it was all a joke.

Severus turned off the burner and poured the hot liquid into two small tea cups. One for him, one for Lily… hoping that day would be today, that today would be the day from his dreams. Trelawney was right… all those years ago when she told of her great-grandmother dying in her sleep. He snorted over the tea. Maybe he was more of a palmistry girl himself, maybe not. He didn’t know when the rain fell over his cup, but when it did, Severus didn’t like that it dripped down from his face.

He was ready now. Severus was prepared to confront Dumbledore… ready to know about Lily’s child and learn of her son. A son that in a different life would have called him father.

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The stony stairwell gargoyle sitting in front of Dumbledore’s office was ugly, unlike Lily’s statue. A mucking about of a bird—perhaps an eagle was sitting in his way. Severus did not take any detours on his path here. Only Bill Weasley stopped him en route to the headmaster and asked Severus to relay the boy’s academic performance.

Severus was openly disdainful of Gryffindors, but their courage and tenacity were unnerving. Learning of his Outstanding grade in potions, the older of the two Weasleys yipped in joy before running off somewhere. Severus couldn’t care less now. All he wanted to do was confront the venerable farce of a once lauded war hero, Albus Dumbledore… Severus thought back to the day he listened into Dumbledore’s conversation. It was preternaturally clouded in his brain, but he never forgets it; The one with the power to defeat the dark lord approaches… Harry Potter, the boy who lived, against all odds—the killing curse.

Soul magic.

“Lemon Drops,” Severus spoke, and the gargoyle parted way.

Then why did his mother die in a pool of blood? Why was it that Lily Potter was gone? Severus believed in his Lord, but the man deceived him and forsook his trust, reverence, and fickle allegiance. Severus regarded the man behind the desk. Books lined on shelves greeted him on each side, the artery up the sides paved with portraits of erstwhile headmasters drawing up to the red upper surface of the room... Red like everything in that nursery.

Severus frowned. “Headmaster?”

Albus Dumbledore, hair as white as doves, eyes twinkling with a flurry of constellations, caromed up. “Severus, I wasn’t expecting a visit… what can I do to help?” 

Severus Snape. An abused child. A woeful lover. A miserable adult, imprisoned by the restlessness rearing its jaw down on his larynx. “Where is he?”

“I don’t quite know who you’re referring to, my dear boy,” Dumbledore said, his eyes glinting between the vividly coloured bird on its perch and Severus’s miffed demeanour; the onyx-eyed professor was sure he was exhibiting. 

“Lily’s son...” He said.

The onyx-eyed man with nothing to gain.

“Ah. Yes, young Harry.” Albus said.

“I need to know, Albus,” said Severus, anything but detached from the words yet to leave the headmaster’s mouth.

The onyx-eyed man with nothing to lose.

The man’s face wrinkled as he smiled. “Have a seat, my boy. I believe I will require a couple of lemon drops for this conversation… yes,” the headmaster said.

He was sure that Lily’s tea was still warm.

Chapter Text

Multiple POV

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Godric’s Hollow, October 31st, 1981

He was here. The dreaded Dark Lord was at Lily’s doorstep; the thrashing between him and her husband was silent. Right now—the present was the only chance she had. Her thoughts loomed over her like sleet on mountainsides, and she turned to face her only child: her progeny and the only one who could complete her work. Her purpose. The runes written in blood were darker than when she started in January. But there they were, elegant syntax and all. The blood had never lost its colour as it decorated the crib’s edges. This was it—Lily’s last chance to accomplish what no other witch has done before. Conquer death —maybe not her own cessation but her sons’. With a quick jab of her wand, blood runs freely down the length of her arm. She painted the rune ‘Sowilo’ on the left side of Harry’s forehead and prepared to fight Voldemort. 

Anticipation was a sound to Lily. Footsteps, the shrill screams of wind through a nearly shut window. Rain. Fire. Smoke. Blood. As Lily asserted her resolution, the dripping cold blood fell to the floor in a rhythmic cadence.

Soon, her eyes will gleam a deathly red.

“Lily Potter, a woman of cultivated taste.” The Dark Lord, Voldemort said as he walked into the nursery. Lily could feel the atmosphere change around them as he spoke. “At least,” he said, his thin lips etched into a grin, “that’s what I got from your husband’s mangled face.”

Lily didn’t have time to register her husband’s death as Voldemort stepped over the sigils painted on the floorboards, triggering the first half of the ritual. The man was so narrowly focused on his goal that he readily ignored the signs that would give away her plan. Lily was so sure that the Dark Lord knew of the Miserable Art, blood magic… he was the one to offer people like her shelter from the wrath of the Ministry. But in doing so, he alerted them of the very real danger magic like that posed.

Lily kept her composure as the man walked up to her. “What’s this? Injured, are we?” Lily braved through the pale finger and pointed to her bleeding arm. The so-called Dark Lord was too conniving for his own good. Harry in his crib cried, and under his hood, Voldemort’s smile grew manic. Drawing her wand, the woman strategically placed herself between her son and Voldemort. 

Just a little longer. 

But it gave her room to maneuver blood flow into the runes that painted the crib. Just a little longer… and she could let them take her… take her to the place between life and death. She hadn’t noticed that Harry’s crib was no longer a baby blue—it was now a menacing shade of crimson.

Anticipation was a sound to Lily, and it horrified her.

“In that way, you are like your husband. The fool ran into his own front door,” Voldemort said, amused.

Lily needed more time, but the thing about Lily was that she could stay calm under pressure. She would not let this man do as he pleases. “Voldemort,” she proclaimed. “Leave my home!” She jumped onto the surprised man, putting all her weight on her left knee as it collided with him, bringing them both to the ground. Lily held her wand like a killer holds a blade and started gutting Voldemort in the abdomen with her wand. 

The leader of the Death Eaters howled as she pricked her willow wand far into his solar plexus. “You filthy muggle!” He cried. A sudden hitch halted Lily’s nebulous sense of triumph, but it wasn’t. It was gravity withdrawing from her body as the man levitated her off him and flung her into one of the cherry-shaded walls. Lily struggled to get up, but she did just in time to catch a stunner to the face. She allowed herself to smile on the floor as Voldemort hyperventilated while he stood up. 

Lily had done it—there was now a bloody rune drawn on the man’s stomach, spreading like Lichtenberg figures on skin struck by thunder.

But her work was not done. It never was, for those who wandered the path she did.

<><><> 

As Voldemort faced the crib of the child of prophecy, he stifled a gasp and forcefully obstructed his impending asphyxiation. Whatever the mudblood did was corroding his innards. There she was in all her bloody glory, Lily Potter. Standing tall with a mother lion’s ferocity, she used the crib as a balance, as their eyes clashed. There was brown blooming into her verdant irises.

“Move,” Voldemort said. He wanted her to go, to leave before he lost control again.

The woman did not budge.

“I said, move, you foolish woman.” His voice grew strained. He could not afford to lose himself.

Lily Potter looked like she wanted to respond; she really did. With the way, her mouth opened and closed like she was speaking. Chanting. But the blood in her system seemed to have all but run out. Voldemort, the Flight of Death, was now solely focused on this redhead with a bit too much snark for someone so close to death. Yes, Voldemort the Dark Lord was not afraid of death, he was the being himself, and those who rejected him and his adoration were worthy of his disdain. They did not deserve death’s kiss.  

But the Dark Lord did not notice his state of disarray, that the room was all painted red, from the floor tiles to the ceiling. Everything was red, red, red.

“I said fucking move, woman!” He shot a wordless Crucio at the woman from his bone-coloured wand and observed her squirm under the spell. 

His servant, Snape’s words, rang in his head. His pleas and cries, begging for him to not severely wound this woman and better yet kill her. But he never agreed. And besides, she’s done more than that to herself. Lily Potter looked like an Inferi now. 

Voldemort paused. When had this woman’s eyes changed from that rumoured emerald green to this inhuman red? A Hemomancer?! In the Order of the Phoenix?! Absurd, unfounded… unnatural.

“You must not have known, Voldemort...” Lily Potter spoke out of her gaunt mouth, rasping for air.

“Nothing comes from nothing.”  

It burned.

Every part of Voldemort burned as Lily Potter melted into a puddle of blood. Her eyes were the last to go; glowing red would haunt him for the rest of his immortal life. Worse was that he knew, he knew exactly was she was saying—what she said. The rage in him grew exponentially. 

Voldemort let go of it. He had a job to finish. Now to extort his prime purpose, his end goal. To kill this child of prophecy. The boy had ceased his tantrum, but now something horrifying stood in Voldemort’s path.

Those same damning blood-red eyes.

The wretched child looked up at him with a red gaze close to his natural dark brown curiously; a red so distinctly reminiscent of blood. Voldemort could tell. He could tell that this was what the Matron, Mrs. Cole, thought of him. 

Devil incarnate.

Raising his wand. He aimed for the boy, who giggled at his movement. Giggled. As if it was toying with him, him the most prominent Dark Lord the world has ever seen. People were scared to breathe the same air as him. And yet here. The Dark Lord was terrified of the sheer darkness that stemmed from this toddler.

“Avada Kedavra!” He bellowed in agonizing, unadulterated horror.

Then there was nothing. Lily Potter was right. 

Nothing comes from nothing.

Chapter Text

4 Privet Drive, May 21st, 1988 

There was always a flock of birds around the tree facing her kitchen window. Among the flock was a little grey one and its mother, who preferred her other children over the little grey one. Petunia named it Cascadia, after herself. Maybe if she had a daughter, she would call her that. But she did have two boys. One of them her own, and the other closely knit by blood. 

Petunia had a secret. Not known by her husband or her son. Petunia was capable of magic. Not that she was a witch or ever wanted to be. The only person who knew of this secret was her nephew. 

Out of her family, Petunia was very different from her obese husband. Not that she’d ever say that to his face. Vernon is a man deeply rooted in traditional values, whereas Petunia has dabbled in her fair share of progressive ideology. They are different people. But they share a roof and sit at the same table for dinner, no matter how much he hates it when Harry sits too.

She wasn’t too different from Lily. Even though she had no place in Hogwarts, Petunia Dursley studied magic with her sister. She was what they call a squib—a mundane woman with nothing remarkable to say about her, aside from her ability to brew potions and perform runic magic. She minded her own business and followed the law closely, never breaking the Statute of Secrecy. 

Harry was a calm boy. Most eight-year-olds his age would run around and cause havoc, but the boy was quiet, collected and eerily similar to her dead sister. Morgana forbid that he directs his anger at someone because with looks so angelic he could kill with a smile.

There was subtle anguish in the boy’s voice when he spoke. Unlike an average child, he constantly bites down the words he wants to say and masquerades around in the facade of carefree aloofness. His teachers proclaim how nice of a boy he is. And even Vernon admits to how docile the boy is. After he had his way with him, Vernon placed him in the attic where no one could hear his muffled cries when the boy outgrew the cupboard. 

Petunia had another secret that could get her into a lot of trouble and end with her being sentenced to death.

She could manipulate blood. 

From a very young age, she and her sister Lily would practice the art secretly. The power of blood was unlike anything else in her life. It was harmony, and it was balance. It was a calling not many could hear. But she could, but so could Lily. Before she trotted off to Hogwarts, it did not matter that Petunia wasn’t a witch because she and her sister had a powerful bond that transcended the boundaries of who was what.

But now, Lily was gone and what was left of her was cleaning the dishes. Harry was standing on his tippy-toes over the yellow stepping stool on the ground.

To Petunia, Harry was an innocent boy brought into a harsh environment where he would not receive love and affection as other children do—however this was the perfect environment to raise a child in the arts of Blood Magic. Although she could practice it herself, she used Harry as her mouthpiece to learn and create new spells, which required a steady flow of magic.

Petunia and Lily were portrayed as sisters persecuting each other, but that was not true. They were as thick as thieves from a young age. Even after that Snape boy took Lily under his wing, Lily always returned and told her everything she learned that day. Lily was three years younger than Petunia with a propensity for fire and arson. She set a rabbit on fire with her magic by accident once, and they ate it in silence. A random thought, but alas. It explains Harry’s affinity for cooking bacon without ever burning himself. 

In her last year of secondary school in London, Petunia met Vernon, an athlete with handsome stubble and similar beliefs to her and Lily. Spinner’s End was never Lily’s home. It was always Hogwarts… a place Petunia wanted to call home, but it wasn’t. It would never be. When Vernon saw Lily for the first time, he was infatuated. As most men who saw her. Eerily, this was not normal. Petunia was not bad looking. In fact, one could go as far as to say that she was just as pretty as Lily. But the red-headed vixen was so enchanting. That there had to be foul play. A juvenile terror waiting to happen was she. 

But no. Lily was born that way. After Lily’s death, Petunia traced their family lineage back to the dark ages when she discovered that an ancestor was a half-blooded magical creature called Aos Sí. Lily had inherited some kind of power from them, which attracted the opposite gender. Which was what Petunia thought until she saw that Polkiss boy trying to lick Harry’s face. Apparently, the son doesn’t stray far from the mother. 

Of course, there was the other thing, which was more likely to explain what Harry exactly was and how things happened around him. And she was not talking about the boy being a wizard. A saviour. A hero—celebrity... Petunia was not the one to dig her nose into people’s lives, well, okay, maybe she was, but it was probably a good thing because she could keep Harry away from danger for most of his life.

She looked at the two boys. Dudley, her son, was chubby and round, eternally hungry. The same could be said for the skinny boy wiping her mug with a small towel. Harry was hungry in a different way from Dudley. Harry was hungry for knowledge. Petunia could see it in the ebb of his fingers, how he itched to know more, to swallow it whole.

“Dudley, what would you like for tea, sweetums?” She called out to her boy. ‘Sweetums’ was not the first thing that came to people’s minds when they thought of Dudley, and most would actually say something partway derogatory or crude.

“CHOCOLATE!” The boy yelled from the other side of the room. 

The silence was deafening. Harry giggled from his position by the sink but continued washing the dishes after receiving a quirk from Petunia’s brow.

“My bundle of joy, you already had some cocoa this morning...” Petunia tried, and Harry most likely thought she wasn’t trying hard enough. And she wouldn’t be able to correct the boy.

“Alright.” Petunia sighed and put four bars of chocolate on a plate. Without the wrappers, Diddly Diddums couldn’t open them without dropping the plate on the floor. 

He was awful at multitasking.

To top it off, Vernon had a late shift today. And a long day it will be.

<><><>

“The red candles are for releasing the mist, the runes are for the dimensions you cast between, and the process of striking me with the spell is how we’ll get results. Do you understand so far?” Aunt Petunia asked him. Her bangs, usually blonde, were dyed black today. 

“Mhm,” Harry replied. His aunt tended to over-explain things, but she wasn’t a bad teacher. Uncle Vernon preferred it when aunt Petunia didn’t dye her hair, but he wasn’t in charge of her body, so she could do whatever she pleased. Harry dug his nails in, feeling something wet on his fingertips.

“Are you paying attention, Harry?” The woman said, facing away from him. 

Harry nodded at the question while staring at the dust bunnies hopping about in the corner of the attic. “Yes, Aunt Petunia,” he said. Harry would instead learn about anatomy. 

The veins of human beings were rather fascinating. 

They could hold and carry blood cells to the right side of the heart. Blood is the road to health, as a well-balanced diet is a road to well-being. 

“Are you lying?”

“No.” He most definitely was.

“That’s a lie, and you kn—” She stopped when she turned to look at him. 

Aunt Petunia looked disappointed. “Show me,” she demanded. Harry shuffled on the spot, pulling up his pants to show her the mess he’d made. Oh great, he thought, his aunt would berate him now. He knew it. The woman kneeled down and touched the tears of blood dripping from Harry’s knee. It was all his luck that his trousers weren’t completely soaked. “It’s swelling, Harry,” aunt Petunia said. She followed up her words with a stern look. 

Harry wasn’t sure if she was mad at him or the blood staining her floor. Either way, it didn’t matter. Harry gave her a look. She was going to ask him to clean it anyway, so he started scooping the residue off the floor. Might as well start before she tells him.

“Boy, stop.” Aunt Petunia pulled his now red hands away from the floor.

“You don’t want me to clean it up?” he asked, but she ignored him. Instead, she picked up a cloth from her side table and brought it back to clean Harry’s knees. 

His uncle once told him it was a boy’s job to clean up after himself as he grew older, but Harry only did it when his uncle was done with his weekly lashes or when he woke up the morning after. The man endeavoured to whip the magic out of him because Uncle Vernon wanted him to be normal. Regular.

But where was the fun in that? 

“Harry... why?” Aunt Petunia asked, looking at the jagged cut stinging his kneecap. She balled the cloth in her hand. Aunt Petunia looked defeated. “You know what, never mind... you know the drill.” She gave him a meaningful yet pointed look. 

Harry knew every drill; his uncle worked at a drill company. Since Harry didn’t mind a little dirt, he pulled up his wet fingers and licked.

“Drink from the cut, not the floor!” Aunt Petunia started palming her forehead.

Harry ignored her as the stinging sensation started to quell as his blood re-entered his system. 

Concentrating on the fire in his system, Harry watched the cut on his knee recede until all that was left was a fading scar. 

Those didn’t last long.

The woman got up and made her way back to her work.

Go outside. You’ve been crammed up here all afternoon,” Harry’s aunt murmured over the tabloid she was reading. Another journal of hers, or his mother’s, Harry would have liked to read it regardless. There were so many things his aunt hid from him that it was getting hard to stay on track of his progress—Harry had to break apart the foundation laid upon him by his school teachers when he started learning blood magic. He would sit on his desk for days drawing the runic equations until he perfected the symmetry of every symbol to the most delicate details. 

“The rose bush needs trimming,” she said. “And you know what to do with the Dahlia’s, don’t you?”

“Yep. See you later, Aunt Petunia!” Harry said, rushing out of the attic.

Maybe if he did his chores today, uncle Vernon wouldn’t hit him.

Chapter Text

Little Whinging, Surrey, May 22nd, 1988 

The boy was with muggles—not ordinary muggles either; he was living with Lily’s miserable witch of a sister.

Irony must run in their bloodline.

Severus was losing patience, and Dumbledore was no help, only shrugging and hinting at the child’s location. This only strengthened his resolve to rescue this child from whatever machinations those muggles had put him under.

Lo and behold, here he was walking down muggle streets, dressed to the nines in muggle apparel. The strange looks muggles gave were totally uncalled for; he had impeccable fashion taste. 

Severus knocked on the streets of Privet Drive, starting from number ten.

This was a mistake. Every house was either unresponsive to his knocking or opened the door to scream at his appearance. One muggle child called him an ‘emo’ and laughed for a minute before inviting him in for tea. Severus declined if only to preserve his tact. Moving further into the neighbourhood and tripping over a random cat that came out of nowhere, Severus finally found what he was looking for.

There he was. 

The boy was sitting out on the patio, plucking weeds from shrubbery around the ostentatious house. The boy was pale, cherubic in disposition. His hair was black as the night sky and tamed to lay loosely just under his ears; his eyes were the shape of wide almonds and the colour a bewitching shade of green. Like a secluded grove in a forest or the most delicate emerald, or your memories flashing in an instant before the total, eternal darkness bestowed only by the ravenous Killing Curse.

If Severus set a photo of Lily side by side with the boy, no one could tell the difference.

Except for his eyes.

Those tantalizing eyes gleamed esoterically; they were nothing like Lily’s bottle-green, especially when they looked right into one’s soul as they were doing now.

“Peter Murphy?” The boy said in wonder.

What?

“No... my name is Severus Snape,” the man responded lamely.

“Really?” The boy looked like he was about to ask for credentials. “Why are you hiding in my aunt’s rose bush, Mr. Snape?”

“I am... was... looking for you, Mr. Potter,” Severus said with slight trepidation crumbling from his voice.

“Oh, okay then. I thought you’d start asking me if Bela Lugosi was truly dead, but I apologize for my violation of your character.”

“No... offence taken?” Severus muttered as he contemplated the boy further. “Where are your glasses?”

“Oh. Now that you mention it, I used to wear glasses when I was little; I don’t need them anymore because I ingested the blood of a blind virgin.”

What?

“I’m not going to comment on that, Mr. Potter,” Severus said as he rounded the corner. 

“Are you sure you’re alright, Mr. Snape? You look very pale,” said the very pale child.

It indeed runs in their veins.

“Come along, Potter. We must leave before the headmaster learns of my wrongdoings.” Severus said as he dragged the boy towards the house. “Pack your belongings. Now.” 

Harry brightened at that. “An adventure? Where are we going, Mister Snape?”

“To my home, now pack.” 

Harry frowned for a moment. “I’m not supposed to go with strangers, though. Aunt Petunia says that men who randomly approach children and try to take them somewhere are the vilest creatures. But then again, she doesn’t really say much when Uncle Vernon takes me upstairs for my lashings.”

Severus’s skin was decolorized extensively. 

“On second thought, let’s go now—no need to pack,” Severus said, hastily clapping his hands.

Harry bit his lip in dismay. “Awh, I wanted to grab my butcher’s knife if someone tried to kidnap us.”

Merlin up above, down under, wherever—just exactly what have they been teaching this poor child?

Severus quickly grabbed the boy’s arm and apparated them to Spinner’s End. Severus led the boy to his house, uncaring of how it looked to the small population of the neighbourhood.

Those ingrates will never even touch a hair on the boy’s head again.

Severus wanted to just lie down with a bottle of Ogden’s finest.

And it wasn’t even four o’clock yet.

Chapter Text

Spinner’s End, Cokeworth, May 22nd, 1998

The first lesson in Blood Magic aunt Petunia taught Harry was how to communicate through blood since they are, after all, blood relatives; Harry could send Petunia a distress signal with his location, but to do so, he needed to cut himself open first. Harry would be lying if he found this man anything less than amusing. Yet, the self-obsessed professor of potion making has deliberately banished anything remotely sharp from his abode.

It wasn’t just the butcher’s knife, and to be fair, Harry had a whole collection under the floorboards in the attic. Their purpose was to linger for the opportunity to one day test their mettle against the neck fat of his walrus-like uncle.

Or to sometimes cut open his own skin. 

He remembers his aunt’s words. ‘Blood is yours to command and witness—and only yours. The ministry of magic can’t trace blood magic because it’s tied to something so deep within you that they can’t control or comprehend the darkness that comes along with it—’

Severus Snape was a delusional man with a lack of communication skills, that was for sure. But Harry couldn’t help but pity the man’s self-esteem issues.

“Have you ever considered a haircut, Mr. Snape?” Harry said, gently kicking his legs back and forth on the man’s oversized couch. Which was black like most of Snape’s clothing; a charming smile made its way to Harry’s face as he played coquettishly about extracting an answer out of the skinny man to understand perhaps then the man’s behaviour and why he had taken Harry.

“A... haircut?” The man tried to sound opportune to speak with Harry, but it came out sarcastically, making Harry’s smile drop instantaneously before he pulls it back up. Gods, it was worse than he thought.

“Yes, Mr. Snape, it’s when you allow the man at the barbershop to mince the greased, slimy gore you call—I mean the sleek, stylish... thickness of your exquisite hair to make it look presentable.” At least in public, Harry supposed.

“I know what a haircut is, Potter!” The man growled out childishly, making Harry sink further back into the couch. Looking at Harry’s perpetually shocked face staring back at him, the man gradually congregated himself in a tidy fashion.

“Apologies, Mr. Potter,” Snape said, face pink, Harry noted. “I was inquiring as to why I would need a... haircut. My hair looks perfect as it is... I believe.”

Harry’s deadpan stare at him must have done something as the man backed away slowly until he hit a cabinet, haphazardly turned, and picked up a bottle of alcohol. Harry’s not sure what kind. His uncle drinks, but it usually took the man a sip or two to completely lose all sense of reality. So Harry didn’t have much to say in that regard.

Severus Snape sat down on his armchair, caressing a bottle of rum (That’s just what the package says) and started rubbing it on his forehead like he was worshipping a deity. 

Wow, being an adult must suck arse.

When Harry worships something, he makes sure to do it with enough blood lying around.

They sat in silence before Severus sat upright and signalled Harry to come to him, in... some sort of a gang sign.

“I don’t think the Jedi on the telly does it like that, Mr. Snape,” Harry informs him with another blinding smile. He brushed his teeth extra hard to make up for the lack of toothpaste that Dudley had digested that morning.

“Oh, for goodness sake.” The man suddenly got up again, and Harry urgently backed into the couch again. He was not going to start calling it a sofa; it was way too abnormally large to be called something dainty like a sofa; just like the man’s nose.

Snape reached him and placed a hurried hand over his. Harry had his eyes closed, but he was pleasantly surprised to find a purple-packaged candy depicting a chocolate frog when he opened them. 

And hey. Who doesn’t like cooing at those innocent little creatures as their bodies are sliced open for meat and succulent blood? 

Maybe Mr. Snape wasn’t too weird.

The man looked at least forty years older when he sat down.

“What’s an Agrippa?”

“At least it’s on the topic of my career,” Snape lamented.

What a strange man.

Chapter Text

Spinner’s End, Cokeworth, May 22nd, 1988

Severus swore at the sight of the Daily Prophet. Of course, this had to happen today; that menace Fenrir Greyback had escaped Azkaban.

Bloody Rita Skeeter.

“What’s wrong, Mr. Snape?”

Severus quickly ran down the basics of Harry Potter to the boy who was unaware of his surroundings... or perhaps far too aware. Severus then showed the boy the paper.

After a beat, the boy started nodding his head. “So you’re telling me I’m famous. Have a reputation for something I did as a baby... and goons are running around trying to hunt me? And I need to be careful because three of them escaped wizard prison?” The Potter boy asks unhurriedly, questioning every word that comes from his mouth.

“Yes,” Snape responded curtly.

“You aren’t much for words, Mr. Snape?”

“I can be.” Severus spat out. And the boy knew it from when the man went over what an ‘Agrippa’ was. He was being purposely obtuse.

“So can we go outside? I wanna see the big werewolf guy.” Harry pulled at the man’s leg until Severus couldn’t say no.

“Why would you want to see the big werewolf guy after I explicitly told you that he eats children?” Severus barked out, genuinely concerned for the child’s mental well-being.

“I want to know what his blood tastes like—I mean type.” Harry gulped silently, averting his eyes. “I want to know his blood type...” He added weakly.

“And they call me the dungeon bat.” The man palmed his face. “Come on; it’s almost sunset,” he said to the boy, turning for the door.

Harry, in a fit of giddiness, Harry stood up on the couch and embraced the man. And for a reason, which he could not explain, Severus returned it.

“Can I have a knife now?” Harry requested politely as if asking for a second serving of ice cream. How did the boy equate a hug to receiving a knife?

What in the world.

Severus contemplated not hugging the boy again after this once but chose against the notion. Those angelic eyes saw through Severus’s secrets, his thoughts... all the while looking nothing like James Potter.

“How did you regain your sight again?” Severus asked.

“So you see, there was this nursing home, and one of the old ladies never married while I visited the library next door, so she would sometimes talk to me from the courtyard on the way back to Privet Drive, so one day I asked what her blood type was—”

“Alright, let’s go.” Stretching his ‘Ah’ was compulsory but worked out for him as the boy promptly fell silent and allowed the potions master to pick him up without hassle.

Apparating to the near magical village outside Cokeworth, Severus walked along with the shops with Harry in tow.

Visiting a sweet shop, Harry, as it turned out, unsurprisingly loved blood pops.

The vendor even joked about Harry being a vampire. “It’d explain his pale face, I reckon.” It did.

The worst of it was that Severus believed the man—but then it begged the question.

How did the vendor not know who Harry was? 

“Harry, can you...” Severus hauled the boy into a shadowy alley and told him to push his bangs back.

The severe lack of ‘scar’ was paramount in his inspection. A muted gasp left him, and he steered the boy back into the streets.

“Where to now—oh look! A barbershop!” Harry gently tugged at the man’s robes with eyes like no mortal could refuse. “Let’s go fix your hair,” the little demon said to him, hopping on each step like he was playing an over-enthusiastic game of peevers.

They entered the shop, and Harry told the lady rigorously what to do with Severus’s hair. And much to his surprise, the blonde barber responded enthusiastically to Harry’s suggestions. She also shared the boys’ predilection for sharp objects as she pulled out the most pointy scissors in her store.

Severus prayed to every god he knew for those brief few seconds. The rest was unexpectedly done by magic. Her response, when asked, was a shrug. Severus, with his new somehow dapper haircut, strode out of the store with his pouch three galleons lighter. Women at every turn glanced at him as they walked by, even some men. Snape was outside the realm of confusion when a woman approached him and started speaking strangely about his jawline.

“I think she was flirting with you.” Harry implicated. Severus had never felt more guilt-free after losing three galleons impulsively. And another couple of sickles for the copious amounts of ‘Agrippa’ the boy pleaded for—which he was not referring to the potion, thank you very much. Harry identified and addressed chocolate frogs as ‘Agrippas,’ and Severus couldn’t say no.

After feeding some ducks at a nearby pond, the boy started dosing off Severus’s shoulders, so he apparated with Harry to his abode. He was done with ducks for life since he tried to pick up one to impress the boy, but somehow the duck latched on to his head and started screeching. 

Back at Spinner’s End, Severus put Harry down on the couch. The man was sure that the boy would be less eager to find a knife now, considering how sleepy he was from their little trip. 

Even if the boy got his hands on a knife, The boy’s nature convinced Severus that the boy would not do anything with a knife if he had one—Harry was so docile and pleasant to everything that it seemed impossible for the boy to harm anyone.

Of course, that did not apply to the boy himself, and now Severus had his hands full of bleeding boy-who-lived.

“Why?!” Severus asked the deranged boy holding up a blood-soaked, sharp pair of scissors. “How?” 

“Why mister Snape, didn’t you know?” Harry said calmly.

“Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit.” 

Severus learned of true horror that day.

“Nothing comes from nothing.”

All Severus saw was red.

Chapter Text

4 Privet Drive, May 22nd, 1988 

In its’ wake, fire consumes everything. Eternal damnation awaits those who reject its suffocating warmth. But blood is sacred—blood should not boil in fervour.

Anticipation is a monster.

Petunia knew this from the very beginning—an untamable beast who never let you out of its searing gaze.

Lily was like that, too, in a way.

“Mum, what’s wrong with your eyes?” Dudley asked her while chewing on something. Petunia didn’t care.

Plunging into her veins, and activating every nerve, all she could feel was the Call. 

The boy was missing the entire day, and this was her only indication of his prolonged existence.

Vernon looked away from his newspaper to put out his cigarette.

She was now exposed, for who she truly was. There was nothing she could do to convince them otherwise.

Petunia had convinced Vernon that she, too, was ‘normal’ to sate his unreasonable expectations.

Witches who partake in manipulating blood know this because blood is more potent than magic. Harry was calling her, and it was searing her insides. But she wasn’t a witch, she was barely a squib.

“Pet? Are you... you” Vernon lost the compassion in his voice when he saw her eyes. “You’re like them.” Vernon accused her with a monotonous voice. The man’s ashtray was so polished that it reflected her face and to anyone paying close enough attention, Petunia’s eyes were gleaming an unnatural red.

Petunia waited for the outburst.

“A fucking freak!” Vernon threw his ashtray at her feet and stormed off. He was like that all the time but never to her. The man made it up to four steps up the staircase before starting to huff in exhaustion.

Dudley was crying.

The boy had dropped his plate of sweets on the floor.

After kissing his forehead gently, Petunia didn’t make a show of hiding her powers any longer. To Dudley’s amazement, the simple essence of blood surrounding them was enough for Petunia to repair the broken plate.

Petunia was proud.

She practiced that spell for a whole decade and couldn’t get it to work until tonight.

Petunia rushed to the door to pick up her coat and purse before heading out with one last glance at Dudley.

“Don’t worry, Dudley. Mommy will be back, okay?”

With that, she was gone.

<><><>

A train ride later, she stood in the middle of Spinner’s End, where she grew up. Where Lily brought her husband to the lake next to their old home or the meadows she trounced upon with that Snape boy, not touched by time.

When had Petunia become less of a priority to her sister over the years? 

Maybe Petunia was just a nasty excuse for a sister.

With blood still boiling inside her, she coughed into her hand, which came out wet. Not with blood, but tears from her burning eyes.

The night was bleary, but Petunia made it to the house where Harry sent his Call. She knew what this house was and who owned it, and she was somewhat unsurprised by the man’s actions. But she did spit on the lawn before knocking quickly.

“May I help—Petunia Dursley is here?” She heard behind the door.

“Let me in, Snape!” She said in the most devastatingly irritated voice known to man.

“How did you?” Came the strangled voice of Severus Snape as he opened the door. Harry calmly ate a chocolate frog while Snape was flustered and somewhat put together.

She gave him the stinkeye. “Finally fixed that vile and rancid hair, have you?” Petunia said with faked joviality. Snape started to respond, but Petunia cut him off. “Now, will you let me in, or will I have to punch you in your gullet!”

Snape reluctantly allowed her in. Petunia shoved him to the side to saunter in to check on Harry. “What did I say about strange men wearing ugly robes?”

“Excuse me?!”

“Stay away from them?” Harry asked shyly, averting his eyes.

“Correct, now grab whatever you need, and let’s go back. It’s already ten past twelve.”

“Dursley, I don’t know if you think yourself above muggle transportation rules, but the train station closed ten minutes ago,” Snape said with a lack of sobriety.

“Oh, I know, you are taking us back.” Petunia got up close and personal and felt the weight of Harry’s silent support help her eye down a man four heads taller than her.

“Really?” Snape taunted her. And for that, he received a slap across the face.

Harry snorts at Snape’s scandalized expression.

“Really,” Petunia replied with a flicker of bitterness in her tone.

“Really!” A cheerful voice said from behind them, and they jumped. Albus Dumbledore was sitting next to Harry, in his bright neon yellow robes with painted ducks as Harry was nibbling on his chocolate frog’s legs. 

Ignoring Dumbledore’s attire entirely, Snape marched over to the two, “What are you doing here, Professor? You can not just come into people’s homes uninvited!” Snape yelled, sounding mildly annoyed and exhausted. Even though she currently hate the man, Petunia could relate to him as she was also enfeebled from this day.

“I might ask the same question to you, Professor. What are you doing here?” Dumbledore queries back with a kind smile.

“Ooh, I can answer that! Snape likes to... kidnap children on his off days. And since it’s the weekend... you know.” Harry answered buoyantly while eviscerating the frog with his teeth, and he wasn’t even eating it. 

He was just slaughtering it.

Sometimes, he acted nothing like Lily.

“Dumbledore, what do you want? Get it over with.” Petunia wrapped her arms around herself.

“Well, I would suggest you two go back to Privet Drive.” Dumbledore pointed to the satisfied boy and Petunia herself. “But since you are both here, I see no point in you going back for a bit if you decide to stay here. And Severus is agreeable.”

Harry raised his hand like an obedient student, and when Dumbledore gestured at him with a smile, the boy sat up and merrily asked, “why do you get to decide that, Mr. Dumbledore?”

“Ah, that is because I can fire and have Professor Snape here arrested for child endangerment.”

“Wicked!” Harry cheered before staring at Snape. “Can I have another ‘Agrippa’ now?” Harry said patiently.

That was the final straw. “You’ve been giving him drugs?!” Petunia went for Snape’s face with her nails. “NO! No! That’s just what he calls chocolate frogs!” Snape said as he defended himself from her.

Harry and Dumbledore shared a knowing smile before Dumbledore brought up the fact that he had to return to Hogwarts.

Albus Dumbledore stroked his beard a moment before getting up, “other than you already know, Mr. Greyback and his companions were recently sighted near Privet Drive. Your husband and son are fine, do not worry. But I recommend staying here for the week, as young Harry there,” Harry waved at him, and Dumbledore beamed before continuing, “is a priority target.” 

Petunia wanted to ask about Dudley, but Dumbledore calmed her by telling her that he would personally escort her son to Spinner’s End and left Severus no room to complain as the man had put this on himself. He did not say anything about Vernon, but perhaps that was for the best.

Dumbledore left in a whisk of white smoke.

Soon, Harry was drowsily nibbling on another chocolate frog, Severus was lying face down on the floor, and Petunia was sitting quietly on the couch next to Harry, lost in her memories.

They have a long week ahead of them.