Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Another Life ❯ Hush-a-bye Mountain ( Chapter 7 )

Warnings: Yaoi/Slash, Angst, DARK themes, Backstabbing, Incest, Yuri/Fem-slash, and other various nastiness. Hard R rating.
Disclaimer: Ain't mine.

When Snape returned to Hogwarts near dawn, he gave his customary report to Dumbledore…but there was very little in the report that was actually true. No one had died and there wasn’t a new plot to kill Harry, after all. And he didn’t mention a bit about Sirius Black’s sudden revival. Snape didn’t really know why he felt the need to give this false report, but his instincts were his best guides. He wasn’t sure if Dumbledore took his words for truth, since the man gave no indication either way.

As he went on back to the dungeons, he wondered when he had started hiding things from the headmaster. It began small, omitting little spats to keep his dignity. He’d never lied so fully to the man. It made him actually feel ill. Then he remembered the little boy in his rooms who’s nightmares were bad enough to scar even the harshest men and he didn’t feel ill anymore.

His thoughts turned to the conversation with the Dark Lord. It was the strangest talk he’d had with the man, and it was even more strange that none of them, not even that idiot Black, had been cursed even once. The Dark Lord dismissed them to think about his proposal.

Snape made a living at lying to the Dark Lord and getting away with it. He wasn’t bothered by this, nor that another few lies had been told during their latest meeting on the subject of Harry Potter. The Dark Lord did not know where Harry was at the moment, except that it wasn’t with the Dursleys, and Snape had not deemed to tell him with this visit. He’d grown protective of the child.

A child that could very well be the son of the Dark Lord. A boy with a prophesy over his head.

He opened the door and stepped inside, zeroing in on Remus Lupin’s form on the chair. He was asleep, the fire casting odd shadows on his face and salt-and-pepper hair. It made him look like a specter, not truly there on his plane. Lupin, he knew for a fact, was turning forty this year, but looked twice that most of the time. At the moment…he looked far, far younger. The creases of his face were less pronounced in sleep, smoothed by oblivion. He still looked far too worn for his own good. Snape stepped over quietly and shook him awake.

“Oh, hello Severus,” Remus murmured sleepily. He got up and stretched, rubbing a hand through his already mussed hair. “How did it go?”

“It was an…interesting meeting,” was the quiet reply. Snape folded his arms over his chest and gave the other man a hard stare. “How is Harry?”

“He tried to wait up for you, thought I told him not to,” Remus said softly. “He was very agitated when he found out where you were.”

“I see…”

“Severus, I’m worried about how fixated he is on you.”

“What?” One dark brow raised.

“The other day, I came in and he was watching you sleep.” Remus frowned. “It was as if he thought you’d die if he looked away. And his expression when he was waiting for you…”

“We will deal with it when it becomes a problem,” Snape interrupted sharply. Remus fell silent. “Right now, I’m more concerned with his full physical recovery.”

“Yes…There was a check up this evening. Madam Pomfrey said the damage throughout his body was mended and that his throat was as healed as it can be.” Remus sighed a bit “She thinks there won’t be any permanent physical side effects, but wants Harry to gain some weight.”

“His voice?”

“It’s suppose to be fine. He’ll be able to talk when he decides to.”

Severus sat down in the chair Remus had just occupied. “There may be a mental block against it just like the physical one…”

“That’s what she thought as well,” Remus replied quietly as he leaned against the mantel. Snape closed his eyes a moment collecting his thoughts, before turning to Remus again.

“Do you remember Professor Riddle?”

“Yes. Seventh year, DADA. Real nice guy, actually… I liked him better than the guy before him.”

“What about Lily Evans? What did she think of him?”

Remus blinked in surprise. “She was rather taken by him, actually. Drove James nuts. A few of the girls had crushes on the guy. He must have been nearing fifty, if not past it, so I don’t know what the interest was about…”

“And after graduation?” Snape’s eyes narrowed. “Did they interact?”

“They dated and then she moved in with him.” Remus shrugged a little. “It was odd how well they meshed, but she was so deliriously happy so I didn’t question it. We all thought they would marry for sure.”

“What happened?”

“They broke up, really abruptly, and she married James a bit later.” The wolf shifted uneasily. “Why are you asking all this?”

“Nevermind that,” Snape snapped. He got up and moved towards Harry’s bedroom. “Good night, Lupin.”

Remus almost said something but held back and instead nodded. “Right. Good night, Severus.”

He left as Snape entered Harry’s room. The boy was still in his bed, chest rising and falling slowly with breath. The covers had dropped halfway down his chest by movement and the dark red of his shirt made his skin look that much paler in the darkness. Black hair spilled messily like a halo around his slack face. Snape sat down on the bed beside him and brushed a few locks from his face.

“Can it really be true?” he whispered into the darkness. The only reply was the sound of soft, steady breathing.

It seemed as if he were quietly contemplating all the time now. Where before was a raving lunatic she had been secretly planning to abandon with her son in tow, now sat this quiet, pained father who didn’t know what to do about his son. The mother in her told her to be wary and to protect this other child as well as she was able. The servant in her told her to find the child and bring him to her Master, regardless of the consequences. The woman in her told her to wait and be wary of either choice, for the woman in her was the survivor.

How very strange it was that she followed the course of the woman and not the other two, as was the usual. She waited, watched, studied this man, the Dark Lord. She saw him struggling with new revelations and a suddenly clear mind. He was actually thinking, not scheming or reacting, and that made more of a difference than anything else.

“Narcissa?” he asked.

“Yes, my Lord?”

He was quiet a moment before he turned to look at her.

“How could I do this to myself?”

She blinked in surprise and stared at him. Voldemort stared back with just as much shock as she herself had. It was so odd to see that reptilian face show anything at all.

“How could anyone shatter their soul and mutate their body the way I have?” he pressed, getting up. He looked down at his hands, eyes trailing over the skeletal thinness of each finger. “I’m a monster, Narcissa, and I did it to myself.”

“My Lord, there were probably consequences to immortalitly-“

“I remember taking glee in the changes my body underwent. It’s…dreamlike. As if I were only watching it and someone else was pulling the strings.” He stared at her once more. “As if the man I was twenty years ago simply vanished into the shell that is Lord Voldemort.”

She said nothing.

“I was happy, Narcissa.” His voice was suddenly so weak that she could scarcely bear hearing it. “I was happy with her. We were going to be married, do you understand that? Married and start a family of our own. She loved me, no matter how much older I was. She loved me.”

Narcissa only stared. Slowly, the emotion dropped from his face and he sat down, looking back at the fire.

“I don’t understand why it ended. She left the house a week after I proposed to her and married him three months after that.”

Slowly, she moved to sit across from him. His eyes were far away and in such pain. She hated seeing him so weak, but it thrilled her to know that the Dark Lord was still human, somewhere in that damned body of his.

“Did she realize how much younger Potter was?”

“You discredit this woman you loved by that thought, my Lord,” replied Narcissa quietly. His eyes settled on hers and locked, waiting. “If Lily Evans loved you, your age mattered little to her.”

He slowly nodded and closed his eyes, laying his head back on the headrest.

“Did you speak to her afterward?” Narcissa prompted cautiously.

“Yes. She came to me half a year later.” He sighed softly, reaching up to rub his temples. “I didn’t care if it was wrong. I was just happy she came back to me. She couldn’t stay, not with a husband waiting at home, but she visited as much as she could. I still loved her and…she still loved me.”

“An affair…”

“I asked her so many times why she married him when she loved me, but…” He opened his eyes and dropped his hands into his lap, staring at them. “Her eyes would go sad and she never could tell me.”

“What about her family? Perhaps they forced the marriage to the Potters for the social standing?”

“They were muggles. They wouldn’t care about Wizard social status.”

“James Potter then. Maybe he enchanted her.”

“As much as I hate the man, I doubt he would use such methods to gain a wife. Even I acknowledge his honor.”

Narcissa decided then, as she watched defeat roll through the Dark Lord’s gaze for the first time, that she would get to the bottom of this. Lily Evans’ secrets would not be buried.

“The boy should be moved.”

Dumbledore returned his steady glare with a somber stare and nodded as he took up a lemon drop.

“Grimmauld Place is-“

“No.” The headmaster looked startled for only a moment at Snape’s refusal. “That house will only drive him to suicide with thoughts of Black. The boy is teetering on the edge as it is.”

“Where do you propose he is taken?”

“My home. I already have taken responsibility of him-“

“Without order, I remind you-“

“-So it is not an inconvenience to move him there, where I should be anyway.” He settled back in his chair, black eyes determined. “You can put whatever wards you see as necessary onto my home, but Potter cannot be left here.”

“So, the Dark Lord knows where he is?”

“Not yet, but he is looking. With the Dursley home destroyed, there is only one other place he would think of searching, and at the moment, there are only four people here to protect Potter.”

“I see.”

Was it his imagination, or did Dumbledore seem disappointed in his analysis? Snape pushed that thought away. When he wasn’t in the man’s presence, he could think whatever he wanted.

“When will you be ready?”

“When the wards are finished.”

“Good. Do tell dear Harry the good news.”

Snape bid him good day and left the office. He didn’t miss the harder glint in the Headmaster’s eyes. As he walked back towards this child he had come to protect, he made a decision.

Even if Voldemort was Harry’s father, he couldn’t let the Dark Lord get his hands on Harry Potter until he was absolutely sure no harm would come to him.

He wouldn’t trust him to Dumbledore either.

“What do you think of children, Thomas?”

He glanced up from his writing and looked at her. She stood quietly and the window, resting a shoulder against the glass as she gazed out. The fading light cast golden streaks in her red hair and along the features of her face, turning her from a beautiful woman to a glorious goddess. His breath caught as she turned and looked back at him, emerald eyes questioning.

“Do you want some?” he asked.

“Do you?”

He looked away from her and leaned back in his chair, giving the matter thought. Before Lillian, he had never thought much for families and didn’t think he would ever need nor want one. Now, as she watched him from the window, he wondered if he did, indeed, want a family to love as much as he loved her. Sometimes, it was almost painful to look at her, his chest so tight with the bounty of his feelings for her. Could he really stand to feel such a way for a child? He looked back at her, watching the near disappointment she tried to hide, and smiled.

“It sounds wonderful.”

At once, her smile brightened his entire world and as he took her to his bed that night, he wondered how he could ever have been so lucky.

Conditions Met:
1. Voldemort must be Harry's father
3. Sirius comes back