The Lost Generation (1975-1982)

The Lost Generation

(1975-1982)

Chapter Fifteen

Triangles


Monday, 14 July, 1980

Severus Snape looked around the cavernous entrance hall of Malfoy Manor. The collection of armor against the far wall gave a visitor the impression that he was not being greeted so much as held at bay until it was determined whether he was friend or foe. Severus swallowed, waiting to be noticed, hefting the medium-sized box he carried from one hand to the other. He was very glad that he was able to Apparate from one interior--his uncle’s flat--to another, without having to go out of doors into the hot July sun. The stone entrance hall was high and cool, especially compared to the cramped, dusty flat over his uncle’s apothecary, but in spite of the pleasant surroundings (threatening-looking collections of armor notwithstanding), he just wanted to get this over with.

Finally, a loud crack! echoed through the hall and a house elf appeared. He had large green eyes and a long pointed nose and was wearing what appeared to be a pillowcase. Severus recoiled from the creature; he wasn’t accustomed to house elves. He’d heard about them at Hogwarts, but he’d never seen one there. They stayed hidden far too well.

“You is to be coming with me, sir,” squeaked the elf, turning and leading him up the broad stairs. Severus hesitated at first, then followed the elf, staying a few steps behind. He eventually found himself in a generously-sized upstairs corridor lined with what seemed to be Malfoy family portraits. Many of them seemed to be every bit as unpleasant as Lucius; Severus was sneered at by more than one Malfoy ancestor on the way to the room to which the house elf was leading him, and even some Malfoy ladies rolled their eyes and turned up their noses at him.

“You is to go in here, sir,” the elf squeaked at him, opening double doors that led into a gracious sitting room that overlooked the front drive. The high-ceilinged room was empty of humans, but not empty as such; Severus resisted the urge to turn in a circle and gawp at the gilt details and elaborate tapestries, the ornately-carved furniture and crystal chandelier. The elf left without any acknowledgment, as Severus knew he shouldn’t be caught thanking an elf.

He put the gift down on a chair with delicate carved legs and strode to the window, looking out on the generous green lawn before the house, which was divided neatly in two by an allee of arching trees lining the drive leading to the gravel court before the front door. Looking down, he could see that the front steps were flanked by huge topiary sculptures in the shape of Welsh green dragons (smaller than life-size). If not for the dragon topiaries, it could be any Muggle country estate anywhere in Britain. But it wasn’t; it was the home of a very powerful dark wizard and his family, and Severus felt like he was walking on eggshells every moment he spent in the house. He wasn’t even certain that he was alone when he seemed to be, and did not think that it was a sign of paranoia to assume that he was being watched and behave accordingly.

Severus turned in surprise when the doors to the room burst open again and Lucius Malfoy strode into the room; he saw an expression of satisfaction on Malfoy’s face when he saw that Severus had been jolted by his advent. He was not dressed as though he expected visitors; he appeared to have been riding, his long light hair pulled back at the nape of his neck and the collar of his shirt unbuttoned against the heat of the summer day. He carried a riding crop under his right arm, which Severus mistook for a wand at first. A twisted smile on his still-pale face, despite the fact that he’d been riding in the hot sun, Lucius Malfoy ambled slowly toward Severus Snape with his hands in the pockets of his riding jacket, the crop still held between his right arm and his torso.

“Well, Severus. It’s about time you came by to pay your respects,” he said, rocking back and forth slightly on the heels and toes of his gleaming riding boots. He kept his hands in his pockets and did not make a move to grasp his guest’s hand; Severus had been about to put his hand out to Malfoy, but thought better of it, knowing he’d look a great ponce if Malfoy did not respond. “My son is a week old today,” Lucius Malfoy continued. “I expected to hear from you sooner than this. Instead, you have chosen to pay a visit on a dreadful day in my family’s history. Do you know how many Malfoys were killed during the Revolution, when those animals stormed the Bastille on this day, almost two-hundred years ago? Not all of the Malfoys were killed, obviously, but if it weren’t for the branch of the family that came here with William the Conqueror, there wouldn’t have been any Malfoys to go back to France and claim our ancestral lands after the restoration of the monarchy....”

“What?” Severus asked in mock surprise, raising his brows. “Did they find a gang of Muggles too much to handle?”

Lucius Malfoy sneered. “No. It was Muggle-loving wizards, traitors to their own kind, who murdered them. Some of them were named--Prud’homme.”

Snape swallowed, not liking where this was going. “How interesting,” he said, trying not to let his voice shake. He made an attempt to sound more casual, but he wasn’t certain it worked. “How funny that that might be true, when you said that we’re both clan Campbell on the distaff side, my mother having been a MacDermid and all.”

Lucius nodded, glancing at the small inexpertly-wrapped package on the chair with a disdainful sniff. “True. And that is to your credit, even though she was a Ravenclaw. I’d say that after Slytherins, Ravenclaws are next best. That cleverness has often been quite useful in keeping Muggle-borns and Muggle-lovers in their places. After all, our young Mr. Crouch is a Ravenclaw.”

“Was. He just finished his seventh year,” Severus said automatically.

Lucius stopped at that, looking more than mildly annoyed at being corrected. “He is still a Ravenclaw just as you and I shall always be Slytherins. You finished school two years ago, and I finished eight years ago, but we shall always be Slytherins.” His voice was very hard and did not brook any disagreement. Severus nodded briefly, not wanting to antagonize him further. Momentarily, Lucius Malfoy’s face relaxed; he took the riding crop from under his arm and threw himself into a black leather smoking chair with wide upholstered arms, beginning to hit his thigh with the crop, a sort of nervous habit, evidently. “At any rate, we shall come to the matter of young Crouch momentarily. I was talking about your family, before I was interrupted.”

No, you were talking about Barty before you were interrupted, but I should have to interrupt you again to tell you so, Severus thought rebelliously.

“Were you?” he said innocently, sitting on a deep green velvet couch next to Malfoy’s chair.

Malfoy smirked. “You know very well what we were discussing. The Prud’homme family. I’ve done a little more digging into your background. I previously only knew about your parents. It turns out that your grandmother was a Prud’homme, of all things,” he said, as though this somehow made her sub-human. “I blame her for coercing your grandfather to become an Auror. The MacDermids had been a perfectly respectable pureblooded Clan Campbell sept until she came into it.” Severus tried not to betray any emotion in response to this statement.

Lucius Malfoy shook his head, smiling, almost looking genuinely friendly. “And you’ve been quite the humble one about your father’s family, old boy. Why didn’t you ever tell me you were from those Snapes? Snape Bridge, over the Alde river, was the only route north from London for simply ages, and your family collected the tribute from every single person who had to pass over it, wizard or Muggle! The ruddy town was named ‘Snape.’ And the legends about the hexes people suffered at the hands of your ancestors if they failed to pay the tribute...” He was practically cackling with glee. “You know, you really should look into your own family history. Some good stuff there. A pity your MacDermid grandfather didn’t care about upholding the Clan Campbell honor, nor your grandmother. It’s a wonder their daughter had the sense to marry a Snape. At least they’re no longer troubling our kind....” Severus gripped the edge of the couch tightly, willing himself not to hex Malfoy. “Bloody stupid name, too, Prud’homme. How simplistic. Good man.” Malfoy snorted derisively. His obsession with bloodlines was definitely starting to annoy Severus.

“Yes,” Severus said, although he knew it didn’t necessarily sound like he was agreeing--as it shouldn’t. “Bad faith, on the other hand, is far harder to make out. Does it mean that the Malfoys didn’t believe in others, believed in the ‘wrong’ thing, like heretics, or that it was unwise to have faith in them?” He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Malfoy’s smirk was growing across his face. “Keep them guessing should perhaps have been the family motto,” he said silkily. “At least your parents helped redeem your Muggle-loving friend-of-Dumbledore grandparents. Killed by Aurors!” He leaned forward avidly, eyes glowing. “Tell me, what were they up to at the time? The Dark Lord tells me that they were not his servants, to his knowledge, but they must have been working with other Death Eaters if Aurors thought it so important to kill them....”

Severus looked at him without blinking. “Shopping,” he said shortly, his jaw clenched so tightly it was painful.

“Eh?” Malfoy said frowning, looking down to examine a spot on his jodhpurs.

“They were shopping when they were killed,” Severus repeated, feeling again the almost irresistible urge to hex him. “You’re very interested in my family history,” he said, narrowing his eyes as he surveyed Malfoy.

Lucius Malfoy met his gaze, unblinking; Snape felt like shivering, looking across the empty space at the cool grey eyes. “Blood is very important to me. The right blood. When all is said and done, even the Prud’hommes have an impeccable bloodline. A disgrace to the name of wizard in their day, but at least there doesn’t seem to be any trace of that in you. The Prud’hommes are descendants of the founders of Beauxbatons, did you know that?”

Before Severus could answer, Narcissa Malfoy appeared in the doorway of the room carrying a blanket-wrapped bundle. She looked tired, dark circles under her eyes, and her clothing was slightly disheveled. There was a discolored patch of fabric on each shoulder of her light summer robes, and even as she walked across the room, bringing the baby up to her shoulder and patting his back, Severus learned why this was. The child, upon being put in an upright position, promptly spewed onto his mother’s shoulder. It was just a small discharge, and was immediately absorbed by the already-stained fabric, but it made Severus wince and look away. He was not accustomed to babies. Evidently, Lucius didn’t find this any more appealing than he did.

“Can’t you get the nurse to take him when he’s doing that?” Lucius Malfoy said in disgust. His wife behaved as though he hadn’t said a word.

“I understand we have a visitor paying respects to our little Dragon,” Narcissa said, bouncing the baby up and down, even though that seemed to worsen the emissions. She looked Severus Snape up and down, making him feel as naked as he’d been in the pool at Ascog Castle; he suddenly found it very hard to forget what she looked like without her clothes as well. His face felt warm, and he turned away from her, trying to find a reason to look anywhere else. This was far more awkward than he’d anticipated; he hadn’t thought about the possibility that he would encounter Narcissa, although he perhaps should have.

“I’ve brought a present,” Severus said awkwardly, picking up the box and presenting it to her; she didn’t take it but sat in an armchair, holding the baby to her chest.

“You open it, Lucius. I can’t.” She didn’t look at Severus. He’d gone from feeling like she was undressing him with her eyes to feeling utterly beneath her notice.

Her husband didn’t move at first. Severus held out the clumsily-wrapped box to Malfoy, waiting; he made him stand there like a fool for a good minute, holding the box out while Malfoy stared at it, before he plucked it swiftly from Severus’ hand and began to impatiently rip open the paper.

Inside were some wooden blocks, as well as a small gelatinous object the purpose of which clearly mystified Lucius Malfoy--at first.

“They’re Froebel blocks,” Severus tried to explain. “Invented some time ago by a wizard in Germany...”

Lucius raised his eyebrows and held up the gelatinous object as though he’d never been so offended by anything in his life.

“Is this what I think it is?” he whispered.

Severus swallowed before answering. “It’s actually an invention of my uncle’s. He gave one to my parents for me when I was born. It’s impregnated with a never-ending supply of a topical pain-killer that takes effect when an infant sucks on it. It’s very effective for teething pain, so that your wife won’t have to be up in the night when he’s teething. That won’t be for five or six months, of course, but better to be prepared....”

However, Severus wasn’t at all prepared for Lucius Malfoy to walk to the window with the offending object and throw it out the opening before swiftly drawing his wand from his right boot and exploding the thing into infinitesimal pieces, which were now showering down on the front steps of the house, presumably.

Severus swallowed. Oh, don’t let me stop you from overreacting, he thought bitterly.

Malfoy turned to his guest and wife, saying, “And I don’t ever want to see one of those things in my house again. My son will know what pain is from as young an age as possible. He will know what it is to suffer, and when I tell him to endure it, he will say, ‘Thank you, father,’ and be truly grateful that I am not allowing him to grow up to be soft and weak. He will not blithely roll around in his cot, sucking on that, as though he had my wife’s teats in there with him all the time. As for that saving my wife from getting up in the night to tend him--that’s what we pay the nurse for.”

He glared at Severus, who looked resolutely back, swallowing. “Well,” he said softly, “you know what’s best for your son.” He’d never seen such a rude response to a gift in his life. Malfoy was the worst kind of spoiled, self-centered aristocrat, in his opinion; unfortunately, he was also Severus’ chief contact in the Death Eaters, and he needed to stay on Malfoy’s good side. It wouldn’t do to show weakness or rebelliousness.

But Lucius Malfoy, in yet another display of his mood-swing prowess, was behaving now as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. He strode back to the chair where he’d been sitting and picked up the box of wooden blocks. “So,” he said cheerfully, “what do these do?”

Severus felt safer now; he could explain the Froebel blocks without there being a blow-up--he hoped. “Well, Froebel designed them for wizarding children, something that could pick up on a child’s inherently magical nature and augment that without the help of a wand, to help the child build what he pleases. His will directs the structure. If Muggles got hold of them--and Muggles evidently have--they’d just behave like ordinary blocks of wood. They’re not really what you’d call magical but charmed; like a broom, the person handling them has to be magical for them to respond.” He waved his hand over the blocks and thought intently of his childhood home in Oxford; the blocks rearranged themselves into a close approximation of it. It helped that he and his parents had lived in a very boxy house. Severus looked up to see whether the Malfoys appreciated the gift of the blocks. At this point he was quite prepared for it to be converted to kindling. “Of course, he’ll probably just put them in his mouth for a while,” Severus said, nodding at the baby. “But they can’t be damaged by moisture,” he added thinking with distaste of the child spewing all over the blocks.

However, in the moment that he looked up for her approval, Narcissa chose to open the front of her robes, completely exposing both of her breasts, which were far larger than he remembered (the milk, he realized) and put the squirming baby to one of them; she didn’t cover the other breast as she nursed her son. His small hand rested against the curve of flesh there as he contentedly drank. Her exposed nipple seemed to be like another eye, staring at him, and he stupidly stared back.

Suddenly, there was a voice in his ear; “Reminiscing, Snape? Harking back to when you had her at Black and Potter’s party?” He turned in alarm; Lucius Malfoy was very nearly as close to him as Narcissa had been when they were shagging. He could feel Malfoy’s hot breath on his face. “You might have told me yourself, at least....”

And suddenly, his wand was flying out of his robe pocket and he was hurtling across the room; it seemed that his brain was either not processing things in the order in which they occurred or that he was just confused. After the fact, he realized that Malfoy had cried, “Expelliarmus!”, his wand pointing at Severus with his right hand while he used his left hand to catch Severus’ wand, which came flying out of his robe pocket. Severus struck the paneled wall hard, but the impact was mercifully cushioned by a heavy tapestry hanging there. He felt certain that had he thought about it, Lucius Malfoy would have arranged for him to fly into something far less comfortable, but it didn’t seem that this had been planned.

“It--it was over two years ago,” Severus said, floundering, trying to keep his voice from going up in pitch. He pressed himself against the tapestry and tried to get his breath. “You--you weren’t married--and we--we didn’t--”

“--finish?” Malfoy said, a wicked smirk twisting the corner of his mouth as he strolled casually toward Severus. “So Narcissa told me. She thought it was quite funny, really. And your former girlfriend caught the pair of you together. I wish I’d been there!” he crowed, making Severus frown; he’d been rather alarmed by the sexual behavior displayed by his fellow Slytherins at that party. He was starting to think he needed to make a very hasty getaway before possibly being privy to more of the same. In spite of the fact that that was the last sexual contact he’d had with anyone, he was feeling more alarmed than aroused by the suggestiveness in Lucius Malfoy’s voice. I have got to get out of here, he thought desperately. Unfortunately, he’d never yet been able to decide when one of his meetings with Malfoy was over; Malfoy permitted him to leave his presence when he was good and ready, and usually long after he knew Severus had gone beyond his comfort-level.

“Tracheo suo passus est!” Lucius Malfoy cried suddenly, pointing his wand; Severus’ eyes flew open and he clutched at his throat with both hands, falling to his knees, convinced that he was dying. Then the pain was abruptly gone; it was as though he’d been stabbed in the throat, but after the curse wore off, there was no trace of it. Still, Severus thought, for a moment the pain had been real enough.

Malfoy was standing over him now, still grinning wickedly. “That’ll teach you to touch her without my express permission,” he said smoothly, putting out his hand to help Severus to stand. He took the hand, feeling that it was prudent to do so, but he removed it from Malfoy’s grasp as soon as he was on his feet again. Narcissa was still nursing the baby, this time at the other breast. The one the baby had been feeding at had a deep red elongated nipple which was making Severus stare again. Lucius Malfoy turned to see what the younger man was looking at and barked at his wife, “I don’t believe I heard him cry to be fed, did I? You want for him to let you know he wants feeding, do you hear? And then let him yell for a good while. If he thinks that you’re going to feed him before he even asks, he’ll never learn how to open his mouth and demand what he wants.”

To Severus’ immense relief, she took the baby from her breast and closed her robes, meeting his eye with a lascivious wink. Please let me go, please let me go... he thought desperately. He had never been more uncomfortable in his life.

As though he’d read his mind, Lucius Malfoy casually waved his hand at Severus now. “You may go, Snape. You’ve done your duty. In future, try to be a little more prompt about it.”

Severus swallowed, wondering if this would have to suffice for a ‘thank you.’

“Of course, sir. I really must be getting back...”

“Remember,” Malfoy said, turning and raising one eyebrow. “Next week you and your protege will be--well, you know. I expect you to prepare him before then. And if he gives you any trouble whatsoever, I can trust that you will deal with the problem...?”

Severus nodded, swallowing. “Of course.” What did that mean? He might have to kill the son of the head of magical law enforcement? He didn’t relish the idea of killing anyone. There were a lot of things he didn’t relish doing that he might be forced to do, he thought apprehensively; but he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

“Good day, Snape. You’ll be hearing from me soon,” Malfoy added, as though he hadn’t disarmed and then hexed his guest. Severus sighed; he was being dismissed. That was fine with him. His ordeal was finally over. Malfoy handed him his wand.

“Goodbye, sir. And madam,” he added, with a small old-fashioned bow to Narcissa. It seemed strange to him even as he did it, and yet he never really felt that anything he did around the pair of them felt completely natural; it was as though he was playing a role the entire time, the role of Severus Snape, Death Eater.

With a wave of his wand, he Disapparated from Malfoy Manor, filled with relief.

* * * * *

Thursday, 31 July, 1980

Peter winced as Lily squeezed his hand tightly. When the pain from the contraction had faded, her grip relaxed, but she did not release his fingers. Peter brushed some hair from her brow and surveyed her; he couldn’t bear the idea of her suffering. Lily’s eyes no longer appeared green but were dark with pain, only a little sliver of color visible around her dilated pupils. She put her left hand over her and Peter’s clasped right hands.

“Oh, Peter, I’m so glad you’re here!” she choked out.

His heart turned over as he looked at her. “There, now, Lily. You’re a brave girl. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He didn’t believe a word of what he said. Oh, he thought she was brave, but he didn’t believe for a moment that the pain wasn’t bad. He thought about the many times now that he’d suffered the Cruciatus Curse, and while this surely couldn’t be as bad as that, most people didn’t volunteer to have the Cruciatus Curse placed on them.

She smiled gratefully at him. “No, Peter. You’re quite right. That wasn’t so bad.” He had the feeling that she was also lying, but it was necessary lying. She had to lie, most of all to herself, in order to go on.

“When is James getting here?” There was a hint of a whine in her voice.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry I couldn’t Apparate to get him here; I’m just not familiar with Montrose, much less the place where the Magpies practice. I’d end up splinching myself. Your owl is rather fast though, yes? She’ll go to him and he’ll find out what’s what and be here in a trice, you’ll see.”

She nodded, starting to tighten her grip on his hand again. Then she gasped and Peter had to squeeze back hard, to avoid his fingers being crushed. She puffed out small breaths as she stared into space, wide-eyed. Peter resumed the counting he’d been doing for her before.

“One, two, three, four....”

When that contraction had passed, she released his hand and laid back on her pillow, closing her eyes. “Oh, I don’t know how much more of this I can take, Peter...” She put one hand over her very round belly; Peter glared at it, hating the baby, hating anything or anyone who made Lily suffer. Stupid baby! Stupid James who fathered the stupid baby!

“Peter?”

“Hmm? What?”

“I’ve been repeating your name; you were staring into space. God, you must be exhausted! First sitting with me at the flat while we worked out whether I was going through real or false labor, then sending Calliope to James, getting the taxi and now sitting here with me while I try to break your hand. When James arrives you should definitely go have a lie-down...”

Peter drew himself up, trying not to seem as tired as he was. “Nonsense, Lily. I’m fine. But I’m worried about you. Are you certain you don’t want to go to a witch-midwife? Why must you do this in a Muggle hospital?” He glanced around uneasily at the sterile white room, the gleaming chrome and alien-looking technology. He didn’t even understand how to work the cords for opening and closing the blinds and curtains; a nurse had had to come and close them when Lily complained of the light being in her eyes, after he’d made a mess of it.

She shook her head adamantly. “At a time like this--I need what’s familiar to me, Peter. And things Gemma told me...well, I just feel that magic shouldn’t be involved in something like childbirth. That’s how I feel and I won’t change my mind. I’ve been seeing Dr. Van Dyke all through my pregnancy and he knows me. I feel comfortable with him, and comfortable here. Perhaps--perhaps next time I’ll consider a wizarding-style birth. But right now this is where I want to be.”

Next time? Peter thought with alarm. He didn’t like the sound of that. Of course, he didn’t like to contemplate Lily and James sleeping together at all, but it had sometimes been rather difficult to avoid acknowledging that they did this while he had been living with them. It had been very hard to live in denial about their physical relationship late in Lily’s pregnancy. Of course, the pregnancy itself was an obvious daily reminder of what they did together, but he had also hoped that it would mean that during the months leading up to the birth, Lily and James would cease their sexual contact. It was a comforting thought. Unfortunately, he was utterly mistaken about that.

One morning, just after dawn, he’d heard quite a ruckus from behind Lily and James’ bedroom door. She was laughing hysterically.

“Oh, James!” she heard him say. “You should see the look on your face! Don’t worry, come here....there are ways to avoid me having to bounce about, and you don’t have to worry about....”

The rest of the sentence was inaudible to Peter. He heard James’ voice responding: “Oh, keep doing that....” There was a catch in James’ voice, and then he was reduced to inarticulate moaning.

A wicked laugh emerged from behind the door. “Now aren’t you glad that all of these pregnancy hormones are making me so randy all of the time?”

Peter had retreated to his couch and stuck his fingers in his ears, singing whatever music came into his head. (All he could think of was “Greensleeves,” the lyrics of which weren’t exactly comforting.) She was almost nine months pregnant and they were still going at it! He wanted to throw something, or hex something. Mostly he wanted to throw or hex James Potter.

But James Potter wasn’t here now; he wasn’t the one holding Lily’s hand and comforting her. He was the one causing her the pain. Peter used a soft cloth to wipe the perspiration from her brow, smiling gently. When another contraction came over her, he put his hand in hers and squeezed back when she gripped his fingers tightly. I’m here and he’s not. Peter had thought about not sending the owl, or not writing the correct message in the letter, but he was afraid that later, it would come out that he’d done these things. Instead, he did exactly as he’d said he would.

So it wasn’t his fault that James Potter hadn’t yet shown up at his wife’s side, was it? Peter knew James would have to find an approved Apparition point near the hospital wing where they handled births, but James could always Apparate to their flat and take a taxi from there. Peter was starting to feel more and more smug; Not so reliable now, is your precious husband? he thought at Lily. I’m here. I’ll never leave you.

But he had no sooner thought this than none other than James Potter himself came striding into the room. He was longer wearing his Quidditch robes, but still sported the muddy trousers and jersey he habitually wore under his Montrose Magpies uniform. He went to the bed, and Peter felt Lily’s fingers leave his as James Potter took her hand instead, just as another contraction moved through her.

Peter stepped aside, suddenly feeling useless and discarded. James counted and breathed with Lily, as Peter had done, and when the pain had passed, James grinned at her and gave her a kiss on the lips. “You thought I wasn’t going to make it, didn’t you?” he said to her softly.

She smiled at her husband, all of her love for James Potter evident in her eyes. “I had faith you would make it,” she said, and Peter could tell that she wasn’t just saying empty words.

He was caught off guard when James suddenly turned to him, crowing, “We’re going to have a baby!” He threw his arms around Peter in an exuberant hug, and Peter awkwardly patted James’ back, forcing his face into a smile. James held him at arm’s length, grinning at him. “I don’t know what we would do without you, Peter. You’re a giant among men!” He laughed at his own joke; Peter was barely up to his collarbone.

Lily reached out for Peter’s hand again and he willingly gave it to her. “All joking aside, Peter, I really am so grateful to you for being here,” she said quietly. Peter could see the affection in her eyes and felt a lump rise in his throat. She meant it, she really did. He’d been there for her, her pillar of strength, someone she could count on. James wasn’t, Sirius wasn’t, Remus wasn’t, her friend Cecilia wasn’t, her fellow Aurors weren’t. Certainly her family wasn’t, although he knew that they were all in a hospital room in London by Lily’s mother’s bedside. Her mum was very ill again, and this was something else that had been distressing Lily in the days leading up to her due date. No, all of those other people had better things to do. He was the one by her side, the one Lily could count on, and she knew it. He felt his chest swell a little with pride.

James pulled out the chair in which Peter had been sitting; it was the only one in the room. He sat by her side and took her hand in his again, turning to Peter. “You should get some rest now, Pete. Or food. Do you need some Muggle money?” His face fell suddenly. “Oh, wait--I used my last quid for the taxi. Have you got anything, Lily?”

She nodded. “In my handbag, over there--”

“I’ll be back,” Peter told her, once he had a ten-pound note in his pocket. He started to leave, but Lily wouldn’t let him.

“Oh, no, you don’t. Come here, Peter Pettigrew.”

He neared the bed and was shocked when she pulled his face down to hers and turned her head, kissing his cheek. He knew he was probably bright red when he stood upright again. “Thank you for everything,” she said again, giving him, he thought, the sweetest smile. He fought the urge to put his hand on his cheek, to protect and preserve the spot where she’d kissed him.

“What are friends for?” he said, trying to sound more nonchalant about this than he felt. When he was leaving the room, James was leaning over to kiss his wife, turning the smile on Peter’s face into a frown. Peter strode down the hospital corridor to the lifts, a swarm of conflicting emotions making his stomach clench. He thought at first that he’d try to find a bakery, have a nice pie, but instead, he decided to go looking for the nearest pub. After seeing that, he definitely needed a drink.

* * * * *

After leaving the pub, Peter had decided to go back to James and Lily’s flat instead of returning to Lily’s hospital room and having to see her and James together. He threw himself onto the couch, feeling very depressed. He hoped on the one hand that she wouldn’t actually have the baby until the next day, but on the other hand, that would mean her suffering for longer, and he didn’t want that either.

He glanced at the bookcases; he’d been able to do far more research on the Prophecy at James and Lily’s flat than at the Weasley house. Lily had earned an Arithmancy O.W.L. in her fifth year and had other texts associated with Divination as well. Peter had discovered that if Lily had her baby on the first day of August, this birthdate would make his number nine, which meant ‘completion’ in Arithmancy, whereas if he were born on the last day of July, his number would be eleven, the number of the Lion in the Prophecy, according to the Centaur Bill Weasley had consulted. (The Death Eater who had recruited Peter had already tortured this out of him.)

Peter had already worked out that little Ron Weasley’s number was also eleven, but since the Centaur had told Bill Weasley that his youngest brother would walk by the side of the Lion, Peter hadn’t reported this to the Dark Lord. He could be the Lion, Peter reckoned, if Molly Weasley had another boy, who would then be the one to walk by the side of the Lion, his brother Ron. Plus, the family members seemed to have a habit of getting Sorted into Gryffindor. (Peter had heard Arthur and Molly talk about their days in Gryffindor Tower.) However, if all Gryffindors were considered potential Lions, at that rate Peter himself could be considered the Lion, and he knew for a certainty that he was not. He knew who he was.

The Moonchild.

And because of that, he knew who the Daughter of War was. Lily. She was the one whom he loved. It could be no other. He of course did not want the Dark Lord to know this. He’d gone to the Ministry to search for birth records for other people who could be likely candidates. Peter’s ‘boss,’ the Death Eater who always tortured him when he was summoned by Voldemort, had told him to only look for Daughter of War candidates born either in March or under the sign of Aries, as he’d been to a Diviner who had recommended this. It at least narrowed down his search somewhat, although it still included Lily.

He found another witch with a plausible birthdate: the second of April, 1954. Her number was seven , like Lily’s. He turned in her name upon returning from the Ministry. When he saw the story in the Prophet with her name in large type over a photograph of her with her husband and children, shown next to a picture of her devastated house, the Dark Mark hovering over it, he’d felt a strong wave of guilt in the pit of his stomach. That woman is dead because of me, he thought. Her husband was dead, too, as he had tried to defend her and got in the way. The children were now orphans, two boys, both under the age of six. Because I led Voldemort to her, and she wasn’t even the right one....

Unfortunately, the Dark Lord had a dream that that killing had been a mistake. He set great store by his dreams. He’d summoned Peter and told him to keep looking for all three people at once; the Lion and Moonchild had to have a relationship to each other and to the Daughter of War. Peter had obeyed, after suffering Cruciatus, of course. After that, he made a list of witches’ birthdates starting in 1959 and going backwards to the beginning of the century; when he was done that, he looked up marriage records, trying to find those witches’ names. It was tedious work. Lily had no idea why it took him so long to go on shopping trips for her; she didn’t know that he was slipping away to do research at the Ministry archives. He’d tried using a summoning spell to find the records he wanted, to no avail. One could only summon something if one knew what it actually was and where. He had to sort through the records by hand.

Eventually he found a witch born on the last day of March in 1944 and she had a husband born on the eighteenth of April in 1942. His number was eleven, and he’d been in Gryffindor when he was in school. (Peter had had to look up old O.W.L. records to find out about this.) What Peter lacked was the Moonchild, however. The pair had three children, two boys and a girl; their eldest son had just completed his third year at Hogwarts, in Gryffindor. Which made him seem more like a Lion than a Moonchild, but Peter checked his birth certificate and found--that the numbers didn’t work. The boy was born on the tenth of April in 1966. His number was nine. What is it with this family and spring birthdays? Peter had thought. All Peter needed was for the boy’s birthday to be slightly different, and he could deliver him to the Dark Lord. He could deliver the entire family. It would be plausible. It would work. When he was altering the boy’s birthday so that it was now the fifteenth of April, (it was a simple thing to change the zero to a five in the Ministry archives) he tried not to think about the witch and her husband who’d been killed, their children orphaned. With the new birthdate the boy’s number was five. But Peter still had to explain how he was a Moonchild.

Later that night, when he was having a snack in James and Lily’s kitchen, he noticed that on the calendar Lily had hung up on the fridge door, the phases of the moon were noted. The next day, he went to Flourish and Blotts to find an almanac giving the phases of the moon for many years back and found that on the fifteenth of April in 1966 the moon had been full. It was great luck; by changing the boy’s birthdate, he’d both given him the correct number and a reason to be called a Moonchild.

He did not volunteer this information, however. He waited until he was summoned by Voldemort again. He gave the family’s name and birthdates, reasons why the mother was the Daughter of War, why the father was the Lion, why the boy was the Moonchild. Voldemort had been pleased, very pleased. And since it was the summer holiday, the boy wasn’t at Hogwarts, where he would be inaccessible and safe. When Lily had read of the deaths in the Prophet, she’d cried. There was another uproar, fingers being pointed at the Ministry, an inquiry into just why the family had been targeted. It seemed utterly pointless and random. No one knew of any reason for Voldemort wanting them all dead.

But Peter knew.

And then--a week before Lily had gone into labor, he’d been summoned. He’d been told that Voldemort had had yet another dream. The members of the dead family were not the people in the Prophecy. Peter’s search was to continue.

I don’t need to search, he thought. I already know who the Moonchild and Daughter of War are.

As he’d held Lily’s hand and counted with her, while they waited for the taxi, he was very, very thankful that’ he’d already taken steps to keep him and Lily safe. The day after he’d been summoned, he’d gone to the Ministry and altered his birth records and Lily’s, so that if Voldemort had someone else investigate possible candidates, he and Lily wouldn’t show up. He had considered giving up James, as he was a Leo and his birthday gave him the right number--eleven--but since he was married to Lily, Peter was afraid that she would be considered a viable candidate for the Daughter of War, despite the changed birthday. Is James the Lion? Peter wondered. Perhaps if the Triangle of the Lion, Daughter of War and Moonchild will bring down Voldemort, I should tell James and Lily about it and we can actually do--something--to bring it about. While this sounded romantic and daring at first, Peter couldn’t help but follow up this train of thought with But what? And thus the train of thought was derailed.

Since he had to establish a relationship between the three people in the triangle, his ‘boss’ knew the research was more time-consuming than just finding one person, and he was given until the spring equinox to find the right ones. Peter had heaved a sigh of relief when he heard that, but tried not to look too relieved. They wanted him to get it right this time. Although Voldemort had nothing against killing people who just might be the people in the prophecy, every time another senseless act of violence was committed, the Ministry became even more dedicated to eradicating Voldemort and his followers. Peter wondered how soon the Dark Lord would grow tired of his floundering attempts and put someone else on the job. And although he’d already changed his and Lily’s birth records, he had a bad feeling that it wasn’t quite enough. He paced the floor, thinking.

Suddenly, he knew what else he needed to do; he needed to get back to the hospital, he needed to alter Lily’s memory so that she also believed she had the new birthday. James’ memory would need to be altered as well. He could take care of Lily’s Muggle family some other time. He needed to fix it on all of the other documents associated with her, while he was at it. Her school records, her O.W.L. results, her employment records with the Ministry. It wouldn’t be easy, but it was all very, very necessary.

When he returned to Lily’s hospital room, Remus and Sirius were also there and Lily was holding a small bundle in her arms.

“Peter! It’s a boy!” James cried, embracing him as he entered the room. Peter gamely patted James on the back and nodded at Sirius and Remus, smiling.

“Hullo, you two,” he said cheerfully. Remus looked truly happy about the baby, Peter noticed, which rather surprised him, given his former relationship with Lily. Sirius was grinning ear to ear.

“Congratulate me, Peter. I’m a godfather!”

Peter stopped dead. Sirius? Sirius is the godfather. Oh, you must be joking....

But he looked back and forth between Sirius and James and remembered how close the two of them were. Well, Lily and I are close. Did anyone bother to ask her about her choice for godfather?

“Well,” Peter said, a catch in his throat. “Who’s the godmother?” If it’s that witch Cecilia Ratkowski who’s shagging Sirius, I may just spew, he thought.

Lily looked a little embarrassed. “I wrote a letter to my sister last week, but I still haven’t heard back from her. Mind you, she’s only recently had a baby herself. And with Mum in hospital again, she’s probably quite busy....”

Peter nodded; he’d forgotten that Lily had spoken of extending an olive branch to her Muggle sister. She wanted her to agree to be her son’s godmother. Peter had never met Petunia Dursley; he’d glimpsed her briefly at the wedding, before she’d bolted. He thought she looked very uncomfortable and disagreeable.

“Never mind that. Harry doesn’t need a godmother. In addition to Sirius for his godfather, he’s got two honorary uncles! What more does he need?” James grinned.

Lily looked up at Peter, her face glowing. “Would you like to hold him, Peter?” she said softly.

Ha! on you, Sirius Black, Peter thought. You may be the godfather, but she isn’t asking you to hold her child, she’s asking me. Of course, he didn’t know whether Sirius had held Harry before he’d returned, but he pushed this thought out of his mind as he stepped forward and gently lifted the baby from Lily’s arms. She looked tenderly at her son, pressing her lips to his round little cheek. Peter held the tiny bundle carefully, trying to love him for Lily’s sake. Unfortunately, little Harry Potter was the spitting image of his father, and Peter could not help but resent him. It’s too bad I can’t give your name to Voldemort without implicating Lily, he thought.

So he held the baby and smiled at Lily, and she looked up into the face of her dear friend and smiled back.

* * * * *

Friday, 31 October, 1980

“Oh, I cannot eat another bite,” Bill Weasley groaned, putting his hand over his stomach. As usual, the Halloween Feast had been brilliant, all of the house tables groaning with the most unhealthy food possible and artfully carved jack o’lanterns floating overhead instead of candles, lending a wonderfully eerie feeling to the Great Hall. The enchanted ceiling was dark with clouds, although the rain that was falling out-of-doors was not duplicated in the hall. The lightening was duplicated, however; the entire ceiling of the hall lit up in an abrupt flash, just as the sky seen through the windows was illuminated. Mere seconds later, a rumble of thunder was heard as though the nearby Grampian Mountains were being picked up and moved by the gods.

Bill grinned at Juliet Hathaway, who was holding her fingers in her ears (the thunder was very loud). He gestured toward the ceiling with a chocolate frog in his hand (even though he’d said he couldn’t eat another bite), saying, “Now that’s what I call perfect Halloween weather.”

She laughed, taking the chocolate frog from his hand and biting into it herself. “You know, I always thought I was weird because when I was small, my favorite holiday was Halloween and all of my favorite stories were about witches and magic. I reckon that wasn’t so strange after all.”

Across the table, Peregrin Booth and Rembert Leonard were reaching for some more sweets in a large bowl that never seemed to have any less in it, no matter how much was removed. “My granddad thought my mum might be a Squib until she was almost ready to come to Hogwarts,” Booth said out of the left side of his mouth as he chewed some Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans on the right side. Suddenly he made a dreadful face. “Blimey! Bert! I think I’ve got a--a dung-flavored one!”

He spit out his mouthful into a napkin, making some nearby second-year girls scream, “Eeeew!” while his best friend rolled his eyes.

“Told you, Perry. You and those beans are a recipe for disaster. You have a talent for finding all of the vilest flavors. Have you ever eaten one of those that didn’t make you want to spew?”

“Stop saying words like that!” one of the screaming girls ordered him.

“Speaking of Squibs,” Leonard went on, as though the younger girls hadn’t said a word, “you know what I heard about Davies? About why he had to leave school?”

Bill and Juliet froze, looking at each other nervously. At just that moment, to make matters worse, Jack Richards appeared at Bill’s elbow, also looking replete with his Halloween repast.

“Hullo, you two,” he said to Bill and Juliet. “Mind if I join you for a bit?”

Bill and Juliet didn’t answer, but Juliet moved over so that Bill could sit closer to her, making some room for Jack on his other side. There was an awkward silence hanging over their part of the table.

“Like I was saying--” Leonard started speaking suddenly again; “I heard something. About why your fellow Hufflepuff was expelled, Richards,” he added, nodding at Jack.

Jack looked at Bill and Juliet, swallowing. Had someone else found out that they’d been helping Geoff with his Charms work, among other things? Bill wondered.

“What did you hear?” Bill asked Leonard, looking at him as levelly as he could, determined that he was not going to look away first. Leonard shrugged.

“Well, you know. Just that he was a Squib. Remember when he was a first year? How his name wasn’t on the list to be Sorted? And Dumbledore talked to the hat? I’ve heard that the board of governors isn’t happy; they’re looking into whether he should still be headmaster. They may demand surprise examinations of the magical ability of every student in the school,” he added ominously.

Bill couldn’t believe anyone would question Dumbledore’s fitness for his position based on one act of compassion, however misplaced it might have been. Geoff could have shown some magic eventually. Unfortunately, Bill thought, he didn’t show any magic before taking his O.W.L.s.

“Dumbledore gave him a chance. There’s nothing wrong with that,” a voice said just beyond Juliet. Bill leaned over to look at his brother’s face. Charlie was looking down at his plate, laden heavily with sweets and pumpkin pie. He didn’t appear to have eaten any of it. “We’re lucky to have Dumbledore here. This is one of the only safe places left in the wizarding world. If Craig had been here instead of at home, he wouldn’t be dead.”

Juliet turned from Bill and put her arm around Charlie, bringing his head to her shoulder. Charlie had been rather morose since word had come during the summer that his best friend, Craig Carmichael, had been killed by Voldemort himself, along with his parents. For some reason, Craig’s sister and younger brother had not been harmed, apart from being orphaned. “Someday they’ll get You-Know-Who,” Juliet said firmly to Charlie.

His head still on her shoulder, Charlie said, “It won’t bring Craig back.”

Bill grimaced. Almost no one in the school could claim to be completely untouched by the things Voldemort and the Death Eaters had been doing for ten years now. They’d lived with it for so long--most of their lives--that the idea that it might ever be different sounded like empty platitudes. “Someday” might as well have been a century in the future. It wouldn’t bring back their childhoods any more than it would bring back Craig Carmichael and his parents. Any more than it would bring back Orville Simpson, or Peggy, or Annie.

Bill had hoped that Charlie would get back to being his usual cheerful self when the new term had begun; during the summer he’d shown some signs of being a normal thirteen-year-old, practicing Quidditch in the orchard at home. Bill would hurl apples into the air and Charlie would snag each and every one of them before any of them dropped to the ground. When he was playing Quidditch, he looked happy again, Bill thought. Not that Bill had forgotten his sisters, or expected Charlie to; but they had to find a way to go on, to both respect their sisters’ memories and not have their lives be sacrificed to those memories. He’d let Juliet grow very close to him, and he’d come to trust her and rely upon her a great deal. She kept him from being maudlin, even if it was the summer holidays and she had to write letters to accomplish this. Bill and Charlie’s happy summer had evaporated, however, with the news about the Carmichaels.

“Why don’t we go up to the common room?” Bill suggested now. “It’s not that late, Jack; you come too.” Bill was also concerned about Jack, now that Geoff had been expelled. He wasn’t really close to any of the other boys in his year in Hufflepuff.

“Thanks. I think I will,” Jack said, looking grateful. One downside to the Hufflepuff loyalty, Bill had discovered, was that they were a bit cliquish. And as the friend of someone who’d been expelled for being a Squib--which everyone seemed to know about--Jack wasn’t exactly having to beat off new friends with a stick.

Bill, Juliet, Charlie and Jack walked out of the Great Hall, and Bill found, to his annoyance, that Booth and Leonard were following them. Even more annoying was that Booth was speaking to him again.

“Oi, Bill, where’s Wood, anyway? He didn’t come down to the feast.”

“Or, a better question would be, where are Wood and Boxwood?” Leonard said suggestively, putting an elbow in Booth’s ribs. “J’ever noticed that wood is already in ‘boxwood?’” he quipped. Bill had in fact heard these two make the same joke many times. The pair of them laughed conspiratorially, and Bill drew his lips into a line. He’d noticed that Alex and Mary Ann weren’t at the Gryffindor table, but had very purposefully not mentioned it. If they were using this time to be alone in Gryffindor Tower, he didn’t want others to be gossiping about it. He also didn’t want to think about it too much himself, as he still hadn’t gone that far with Juliet. He wasn’t sure why he was holding back; he was just a bit apprehensive about it. Things would change between them. He liked everything the way it was right now. Change made him nervous; it wasn’t always change for the better. In fact, in his limited experience, change usually wasn’t for the better.

He didn’t comment on what Booth and Leonard had said, and instead asked Charlie how Quidditch practice was going; he’d just started working with the rest of the team on Wednesday and Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings. It looked like Gryffindor had an excellent chance at the Quidditch Cup, with Charlie for a Seeker. Bill managed to keep the conversation on Quidditch all the way up to the portrait of the Fat Lady in the pink dress. She was leaning against the side of her frame; her cheeks were flushed, and Bill thought he saw an empty wineglass next to her feet, in the portrait. She must have had her friend Violet visiting her, for Halloween, Bill realized, and they’d had a bit too much to drink. Her eyelids drooped with weariness.

“Glumbumble,” Bill said to the Fat Lady, as distinctly as he could.

“Mumble mumble to you to,” she responded, yawning sleepily and opening the portrait hole to admit them all to the Gryffindor common room.

The large room was empty of people, but the fire was lit, casting a welcoming glow on the squashy red armchairs scattered about on the worn oriental carpets. As the storm was still raging outside, it seemed like an especially nice place to be on an autumn’s evening. Charlie and Jack sat before the fire, where Charlie’s chess set was waiting (in fact, some of his players were berating him for leaving them sitting about all evening with nothing to do). He and Jack started to play a game, chatting amicably with each other and the chess pieces. Juliet and Bill looked on; he sat in a large, comfortable chair with her draped across his lap, feeling very contented.

Upon entering the common room, Booth and Leonard crossed to the boys’ stairs. Bill wasn’t sorry to see them go. As he traced lazy circles on Juliet’s leg and felt the warmth of her body against his, he was feeling very pleased with himself. Juliet had been trying for ages now to convince him that he didn’t have to suffer for the rest of his life because of what had happened to his sisters, and he was coming round to her way of thinking bit by bit. He was looking at her neck now as she turned her head to watch Charlie and Jack’s chess game (a yell had gone up from Charlie’s players upon capturing Jack’s knight), and, feeling mischievous, he reached out his tongue and gave her neck a little lick, enjoying the saltiness of her skin. She turned and smiled at him for a moment before leaning down and brushing her lips again his and slowly opening her mouth. Bill opened his own mouth, deepening the kiss, thinking that life probably didn’t get much better than this, snogging your pretty girlfriend in an armchair by the fire, even with your brother and best friend nearby. Overall, he had to admit, life was good.

* * * * *

Mary Ann dried her hands on a towel and left the communal bathroom, fairly skipping back down the stairs to the common room, where she’d been reading instead of attending the Halloween Feast. She didn’t mind, at least not much; Alex and Lowell were up in the sixth-year dormitory, having their ‘alone’ time, and she was helping it happen. She felt a little lonely sometimes, now that Alex had Lowell, and since Juliet and Bill were together so much, but she hadn’t felt like falling back on Wallis as a best friend. The girl just got on her nerves in ways she couldn’t even begin to describe, and all she ever wanted to talk about was how undeserving of Bill Juliet was. Mary Ann could barely abide sitting with her in Transfiguration and Charms. More than that and she’d have to put a temporary charm on her ears to avoid hearing Wallis’s constant grating voice.

Voices. There were voices coming from the common room. Before she reached the bottom of the stairs Mary Ann could hear them, and she froze. She hadn’t realized that students were starting to come upstairs from the feast already. What if they went up to the dormitory and found Alex and Lowell together? Her heart leapt into her throat. I just went to the loo for a minute, she said in her head, as though rehearsing what she’d say to Alex. Oh, Lord, she thought now, her heart beating very fast. I’m the worst friend ever.

She ran down the rest of the girls’ stairs and found Bill and Juliet in a chair near the fire, kissing, and Bill’s brother Charlie playing chess with Jack Richards, from Hufflepuff. No one else was in the room, and she heaved a sigh of relief. Bill and Juliet looked up at her, reddening a little, and she smiled at them, trying to get her breath, but not wanting to look like she’d been running.

“Don’t let me stop you. Carry on,” she said with a grin. She bent down to pick up her book, which she’d left on the floor next to the chair where Bill and Juliet were now. They didn’t seem to have noticed it.

Juliet grinned back at her. “For someone who missed the feast to be up here with your boyfriend, you’re, well--fully dressed and all. Why were you coming downstairs? Where’s Alex?”

Oh, Lord, she thought again. How are we going to do this now? There’s no way to get Lowell back to Ravenclaw without his being seen....

“Well, erm,” she stammered. And then Jack had to go and turn to look at her, curious about what was going on. Her stomach flopped when she met Jack’s grey-blue eyes, the light from the fire limning him from behind. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. Oh, Jack, she thought, wishing for the hundredth time that she wasn’t committed to pretending to be Alex’s girlfriend, feeling the pang of loneliness again. And why was Jack looking at her that way? As if he hated her? And yet, also, as if he--didn’t.

She hadn’t yet been able to formulate a good lie when a yell came from the boys’ stairs. She felt faint; oh, this was worse than she thought. “Someone else is up here?” she squeaked, looking nervously at the doorway leading to the boys’ stairs. She bolted for those stairs now, the others close behind her. When the five of them burst into the sixth-year dormitory, they found Booth and Leonard standing in a corner near the door, dumb with shock, while Alex Wood and Lowell Faulkner scrambled about awkwardly, putting their clothes on. Faulkner already had his trousers fastened and was pulling on a jumper, while Alex was still stumbling about, just one leg in his trousers and no shirt on.

Bill grabbed his brother Charlie and put his hand over his eyes. Charlie fought him off. “I’m not a baby, Bill! I’m sodding thirteen, you twit!” Bill backed off, reddening.

“Bloody hell!” Alex cried. “What are the girls doing here?” he shouted irritably. Mary Ann and Juliet obligingly turned around to let them finish dressing.

“I’m sorry, Alex,” Mary Ann said, facing the door, tears flowing down her face now. “I--I just went to the loo--” She felt awful, and incompetent, and hoped he wouldn’t hate her now.

Alex didn’t answer her, but she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up in surprise, seeing Jack looking back down at her with understanding in his gaze. And something else.

“It isn’t your fault,” he said to her softly. “You’ve been a good friend.”

Somehow, she didn’t want him to take his hand from her shoulder, didn’t want him to move away from her. At the same time that she felt she’d as good as betrayed Alex, she also felt a guilty elation move through her. Jack knows I’m not taken now. She swallowed, looking up at Jack gratefully, with a small smile.

In the end, even Booth and Leonard were all right with it, although they persisted in asking a lot of stupid questions, including wanting to know whether Alex had ever looked at them in the shower. Alex burst out laughing, which was perhaps not the wisest reaction, but he calmed down again long enough to tell them that he wasn’t the least bit interested in them; he had a boyfriend.

They sat in the dorm for a while, talking, and Mary Ann saw Alex smile at her and nod; he didn’t blame her. Now that it was all out in the open, his friends--and even those he wouldn’t have counted as his friends, Booth and Leonard--were more normal about the whole thing than he could ever have imagined. She was happy for him, and for Lowell, who seemed ill at ease still, as though waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I have to say--Ravenclaws probably wouldn’t have reacted like you lot. Which reminds me--this doesn’t leave this room, understand?” Lowell glared around at them all.

Bill laughed. “Aye, aye, Mr. Head Boy, sir. No problem. We know how to keep secrets around here.”

Faulkner looked meaningfully at Booth and Leonard. Perhaps Alex had told him something about them. “Are we all understood?”

They looked a little cowed, but not much. Mary Ann wondered if they would be a problem. But they both nodded and said that they understood.

When Faulkner decided it was time for him to go, they all went downstairs with him, except for Booth and Leonard. There were other students in the common room by this time, but when he passed through, even though he was a Ravenclaw, the fact that his Head Boy badge was gleaming on his chest seemed to be enough for the other Gryffindors to stifle any questions; there had to be a good reason for him to be in Gryffindor Tower, after all, and for a group of nine people--including two girls--to be coming down the boys’ stairs.

Jack was going to leave, too, as it was late and he needed to return to Hufflepuff House. He turned to go, then stopped and gazed at Mary Ann, looking very serious as he spoke softly to her. “So. I can assume that all of this means that Alex is not your boyfriend?”

She gave Jack a small smile. “Yes. You can assume that.”

His face didn’t change expression. “Good,” was his only response, before he turned and followed the Head Boy out of the portrait hole.

Bill, Charlie, Juliet, Mary Ann and Alex stood together near the exit, and Mary Ann saw Bill surveying Alex now; Alex seemed more relaxed than he’d ever been before, but also more vulnerable, more naked. He had a secret, and now more people knew it.

Bill seemed to be thinking the same thing. He poked his friend in the chest and said, “You weren’t very bright tonight, you know. What you really need is some kind of early warning system, some way of knowing when someone might be about to sneak up on you, even if they don’t know that’s what they’re going to do. No offense, Mary Ann. You did all you could. But a person does have to go to the loo at times. Something is needed that does not have human, well--needs.”

“You mean something that you and Juliet can use, too,” Charlie said, rolling his eyes, poking Bill in the arm. Bill poked him back. Alex, grinning, also poked Bill. It seemed that the boys were going to escalate this, and Mary Ann prepared to leave the vicinity, to allow them to behave like small children all on their own, but something in Bill’s expression made her stop.

“Yes,” he said slowly, stopping his finger in mid-poke (Alex again). “That’s true. It could be useful for all of us....” Mary Ann could see the wheels turning in his head; Bill Weasley was up to something, but she didn’t know what. A secret smile crept across Bill’s face as he saw that the three of them were mystified about his meaning.

“Tomorrow I’m going to write a letter to Sirius Black.”

The other four frowned at each other; it was becoming less and less clear. But it was Alex who spoke up, as it was largely his protection that was being discussed. “All right, I give up; why on earth are you going to write to Sirius Black?”

Bill smiled round at them, obviously still not quite ready to reveal all.

“I’m going to write to him about--a map.”

* * * * *

Saturday, 14 February, 1981

Bill stared up a the underside of his bed canopy, grinning. Juliet rolled over on him, kissing his chest, looking quite pleased with herself, making him shiver at the sensation of her body pressed against his with no clothing between them anywhere. He ran his finger down the side of her face, gazing lovingly at her and wondering now what he was afraid of, why he had to be so superstitious about being happy. She looked beautiful and unguarded at this moment, and though her hair was all over the place, she looked disheveled in the best possible way. He felt like he could never grow tired of looking at her.

“You look happy,” she whispered, before resuming kissing his chest. He pulled her up to his face, gazing at her the entire time.

“You’ll never guess why....”

She rolled her eyes at the ceiling and bit her lip. “Um...getting twelve O.W.L.s?”

He grinned at the game she was playing. “Try again.”

She made a great show of thinking very hard. “Becoming a prefect?”

He shook his head vigorously, barely suppressing his laughter.

“Could it be--finally shagging your girlfriend and managing to do it absolutely brilliantly?”

He tried to look thoughtful. “No, actually, I think it was that O.W.L. thing after all...”

She grinned down at him while he put his hands on the back of her head and guided her mouth to his. He opened his mouth under hers with a groan, almost unable to believe that this was happening, and that it was so perfect. She was supporting herself with her arms on either side of him now, and he slowly moved his hands down her back, lightly caressing, then around to her front, gently rubbing his thumbs over the still-hard tips of her breasts so that she made a wonderful noise in the back of her throat.

A sudden pounding on the dormitory door made both of them practically jump out of their skins.

“Oi in there!” came Alex’s voice on the other side of the door. “Booth and Leonard are making noises about needing to get things from their trunks. Can I hex them? Please?”

Bill laughed. “No, you cannot hex them,” he called. “Give us a minute; we’ll be right out.” Alex had been acting as their sentinel; Bill knew that he could trust him not to try to hear what they were doing and saying. It was quite safe to say that what was going on in the room between Bill and Juliet was something in which Alex had absolutely zero interest.

Juliet pouted and put her head down on his chest again. “Oh, poo. We’re being kicked out.”

He smiled at her. “I’m afraid so, love.”

When they emerged from the dormitory fully dressed, Booth and Leonard were waiting on the landing; they pushed past Bill and Juliet while Bill shook his head and rolled his eyes. The three of them went down to the common room and sat on a table near the windows, their feet on the chairs. There was a glistening new snowfall outdoors and many students were on the lake, skating.

“So,” Bill asked Alex, taking Juliet’s hand in his. “How’s it going?”

“So far so good. From the window up on the landing I could only see a bit of the lake, though. He’s fallen twice. Not as experienced. After that, they kept up a lot of contact, I’m guessing to keep him from falling again. They looked very cozy the last time I checked.” He nodded toward the window and Bill and Juliet walked over to the glass, looking down on the frozen lake, easily spotting Jack and Mary Ann in their Hufflepuff and Gryffindor scarves, respectively. Jack’s right arm was around Mary Ann’s shoulder and her body was close against his, their cloaks billowing out behind them as they glided across the ice with the other students out enjoying some skating before the evening meal. Since the sun set so early at this time of year, Dumbledore had set up wonderful magical lanterns which were hung on posts around the perimeter of the lake. In honor of the day, the lights being cast upon the ice were in the form of pinkish hearts.

Bill held Juliet close to him as they watched the other students; he was more content than he ever could have imagined. Alex came to stand near them, looking a little wistfully at the scene. Bill grimaced.

“So--when are you and Faulkner going to get to celebrate Valentine’s?”

Alex shrugged. “Probably not for a day or two. I don’t dare sneak out tonight; you know how Filch is on Valentine’s Day. He’ll be patrolling all night to catch people from different houses trying to meet up with each other. And Mrs. Norris’ll be letting him know whenever she finds anyone, too.” Alex sighed. “Too bad nothing came of writing to Black. What was that map supposed to be for, anyway?”

Bill shook his head. “It was bloody brilliant. A map of the entire castle and grounds, plus it showed where people were. Where they are, rather. You know what I mean. They activated it by saying, I solemnly swear that I am up to no good. And when they were done, they said, Mischief managed. They must have worked for years on that map--”

“--and gone through every book in the Restricted Section to work out how to do it,” Juliet said, raising her eyebrows. “What did Sirius Black say when you wrote to him?”

“Well, he took a long time to get back to me, and when he did, it wasn’t good. He said he doesn’t have it anymore, that Filch confiscated it during his seventh year. He was trying to get back to Gryffindor Tower after meeting up with a girl, and Filch trapped him in a corridor near the library. It wasn’t like he didn’t know he was coming, either. But he couldn’t do anything about it; there was no way out. So he deactivated the map and when Filch caught him, he took the parchment, along with everything else he had on him. It’s either in Filch’s office still or it’s been discarded long ago with the rubbish. When it’s deactivated it just looks like blank parchment. It’s not obviously anything interesting.”

“Maybe Filch used it to write a letter to his mum,” Alex said, laughing. “Dear Mum, Still terrorizing the students and managing to keep all women far away from me except for Mrs. Norris, who coughed up a hairball today which turned out to be Professor McGonagall’s hat. She’s the light of my life after you. Your loving son, Argus.”

They laughed along with him. “Speaking of which,” Juliet said suddenly, “how’s your mum, Bill? Didn’t you just get another letter from her this morning?”

“Yeah. To me and Charlie both, really. Just more suggestions for girls’ names for the new baby.” He sighed. “Honestly, I couldn’t believe it when Mum and Dad said they were having another go at producing a girl. She was so disappointed when Ron was born. He’s not a bad little bloke, either. Fred and George drive me round the bend. Of course, when he’s actually walking and talking and all I could change my opinion. I don’t see how she’s going to avoid going barmy herself, having two kids inside of a year. And she has Percy and the twins to handle already. When we were home at Christmas it was a madhouse.”

Juliet shook her head. “I’m not sure I even want to have children at all.” She shuddered and turned to look out the window again.

Bill didn’t remove his arm from around her but he looked at her with concern. “Wh-why would you say that?”

She didn’t look at him. “The world’s already crowded enough. And look at everything going on, with You-Know-Who wreaking havoc and entire families being killed, like Charlie’s friend Craig. And your own sis--” She stopped, biting her lip.

Bill swallowed; there was a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Craig’s whole family wasn’t killed. His little brother and sister weren’t...” he said softly.

She threw up her hands. “Exactly! Those poor kids are orphans now. I’ve started to develop a pretty good idea of what I want to do when I finish school, and creating orphans isn’t one of them.”

“Just because you have kids doesn’t mean you’re going to die while they’re still little,” Bill argued, throwing up his own hands. Alex stepped away from the pair of them.

“Um,” he said awkwardly. “I think I might see whether I can get some skating in before dinner. See you in the Great Hall,” he added, before practically bolting from the room.

“And what do you mean you’ve got a pretty good idea what you want to do? For a living? What’s the idea?” Bill wanted to know. From the way Alex had fled, he knew that their row was getting into very tricky territory, but it was like a runaway train and Bill had no idea how to stop it.

Juliet swallowed. “I want to be like Lily Evans,” she said stoutly. “I want to be an Auror.”

“Lily Potter,” Bill corrected her. “And the last time I heard, in addition to being married, she has a kid. Sirius Black mentioned it in his letter.”

“Well, that’s a way in which I don’t want to be like her, I reckon. If anything happens to her, what’s that poor little baby going to do? Do you honestly think his Quidditch-obsessed dad is going to know the first thing about taking care of him?”

Bill frowned. “What did you just say? Are you mad? What, do you think a dad doesn’t change nappies and make meals and other things? Because I can tell you, my dad doesn’t let my mum do everything. She couldn’t, it’s too much. He’s right in there every day, and that’s after working in his office all day or going on raids all night.”

“And didn’t you tell me that you were afraid he’d go to prison a couple of years ago? What if he had done? Where would you and your mum and brothers be then? Listen, it’s not that I have something against having kids in general, but I do think that if you feel attracted toward having a dangerous profession, you have an obligation not to have kids because if anything happens to you--”

“The Carmichaels didn’t have ‘dangerous’ jobs!” he growled at her. “They ran the post owl office in Diagon Alley! They minded their own business, day after day, and no one knows why they were killed!” Bill’s throat felt tight.

Juliet looked up at him, her eyes shining. “Bill, I didn’t mean to get into a row with you, today of all days.” She slid her arms up around his neck and pressed her body to his; he remembered being with her less than an hour before, the feel of her soft skin, the noises that she was making for which he was responsible, the pride he’d felt as a result. Now he had to force himself to put his arms around her, when what he really wanted to do was push her away.

“It’s just that--we’re only seventeen. We have years to think about--certain things--” he stuttered. She nodded.

“Yeah. Years.”

But as they held each other and looked out the window at their friends skating on the lake, Bill felt that a change had taken place between them, and not for the better. He held her tightly and felt her heart beat against his, but somehow, he felt now that she was a stranger, a stranger with whom he’d shared his bed.

He felt suddenly that he’d never really known her at all.

* * * * *

Severus’ heart was beating a mile a minute. He leaned against the wall of the Leaky Cauldron, catching his breath, while Barty hailed a Muggle taxi. When one stopped, Barty opened the door and motioned for Severus to enter the car first. He did, reluctantly. When the driver started the car in motion again and asked them where they were going, Barty put his wand to the back of the man’s fleshy neck and said, “Just drive, if you know what’s good for you.” He kept his wand there, and the terrified man did just that.

Severus whispered to him, “Why are we doing this instead of Apparating?”

Barty Crouch grinned at him. “I want to have some fun, that’s why.” He surveyed Severus critically. “You know, for the bloke who recruited me, you’re no bloody fun at all, sometimes.”

Severus frowned as the driver wove through the London traffic, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. Pointless Muggle-baiting, he thought. He had a general idea of what was coming.

At least it was better than committing murder.

He still had nightmares--as he imagined he would for the rest of his life--from the first thing they were told to do after receiving their Dark Marks the previous summer. Another Death Eater who was investigating a prophecy concerning the Dark Lord had learned that the people most likely to be involved in the prophecy, who could put the Dark Lord at risk if they were permitted to live, were three people in the same family. The family was named Carmichael, and the parents operated the Diagon Alley post office. They had three children, and the eldest son was supposed to be the third person in the prophecy.

Severus and Barty had been dispatched to the Carmichael home, just outside Edinburgh. The Dark Lord hadn’t wanted them simply eliminated, though; he’d already sent Lucius Malfoy to speak to them about officially declaring their allegiance to Voldemort. He was cautious about just eliminating people who were supposed to be a danger to him. Whenever possible, he wanted to have control over his enemies. The Carmichaels had not responded well, and in fact, they seemed to be packing to move when Severus and Barty showed up at their door; their front hall was full of boxes.

Barty had been gleeful when they’d fought back; Severus had received a bad burn on his arm from Mr. Carmichael, after which Barty successfully struck him with the Killing Curse.

Severus watched the green light speed toward the man; he was of much the same age Severus’ father had been when he was killed. As he laid there on the worn carpet in his own entrance hall, he looked completely and utterly surprised. Mrs. Carmichael was at the top of the stairs in her dressing gown, aiming hexes down at them. She caught Barty on the leg when his back was turned, while he was leaning over her husband, admiring his own handiwork. Barty turned to look up at her, his face dark with fury.

“Attacking someone whose back is turned is playing dirty,” he snarled at her; Severus saw her recoil in the face of his anger. He aimed a curse at her, but she fled down the upstairs corridor. The two of them were up the stairs in a trice, following her. Severus felt the blood pumping through his body as he followed the younger boy; Barty clearly got a rush from this, a tremendous feeling of power. Severus, for his part, had bile rising in his throat, but he was trying not to let on.

They found the mother in her daughter’s bedroom, picking up the little girl, who was still limp with sleep.

“Mummy?” she mumbled.

Severus froze. Mummy. The child only had a mother now. If they killed her mother, she’d be an orphan. He knew what it was to be an orphan. He couldn’t do this, he just couldn’t. Voldemort would have to kill him. He couldn’t possibly be a Death Eater. Not if he had to turn children into orphans.

But before he knew what was happening, Barty was pointing his wand at the mother and crying, “Avada kedavra!”

Severus gasped as the green light struck the mother and she collapsed slowly, her daughter slipping from her grasp.

“Mummeeee!” The child’s cry seemed to go on forever, and Severus couldn’t believe it had happened, that the woman was lying there, dead, with her little girl staring down into her mother’s open eyes and screaming.

Suddenly, a line of crackling red light hit the wall over their heads and they turned to see the two boys in the doorway of their sister’s room. They hadn’t donned dressing gowns and looked like their pajamas were rather old and out-at-elbow. The taller boy seemed to be around thirteen; he pushed his younger brother behind him with his left hand, still holding his wand in his right.

Severus felt he was in a dream as he watched Barty turn slowly, fury blossoming on his face again. “Did you just attack me from behind?” he demanded in a cold voice. “Well, it’s not as though I don’t know where you get it from. I had to teach your mother a lesson about that. I think she understands not to do that now,” he added, gesturing toward the mother’s body with his head. To his credit, the eldest boy lifted his chin and pointed his wand at Barty.

“I’m not afraid of you. I wasn’t attacking. I was getting your attention,” he said. Unfortunately, his voice hadn’t finished deepening, and his timbre was still rather high. His voice cracked more than once when he spoke, and Severus thought, He looks familiar...

The boy seemed to be having the same thought. “Hey, I know you,” he said to Barty. “You were a prefect in Ravenclaw, right? You took house points from me once. And isn’t your dad--?”

“Avada kedavra!” Barty yelled again, with no warning. Severus fought the urge to cover his eyes as the curse hit home, and the brave boy who’d stood up to his killer crumpled in a heap, his younger brother staring in disbelief.

Barty Crouch looked up at the brother, a wicked smile twisting his lips. “I seem to remember that your brother was a Gryffindor. Brave souls, those Gryffindors. Your brother died well.” The younger boy was crying, steady streams of tears rolling down his face. The girl had screamed when her brother was murdered; she was still crouched by her mother’s body, crying convulsively. “You and your sister are too young to have been Sorted. We’ll do our own Sorting right here. If you die bravely, we can assume you might have been a Gryffindor, like your brother....”

Severus could take no more. “I’ll take care of them,” he said gruffly, stepping forward between Barty and the boy, his wand drawn. He nodded at Crouch. “You go. You can take full credit; you did the real work. I’ll be along directly.”

“What about the Mark?” Barty asked him with a raised eyebrow.

“I know how to conjure it. It will all be taken care of.”

Barty nodded at him and with a wave of his wand, Disapparated.

Severus heaved a sigh of relief, but then he saw the faces of the girl and boy, regarding him fearfully. He was a Death Eater, his comrade had murdered their parents and elder brother, and they looked as if they fully expected him to finish them off now.

He swallowed as he regarded them. “Move over there,” he directed the girl, motioning with his wand for her to stand with her brother. She rose shakily, and Severus could not help but think that the Sorting was indeed done; both Gryffindors, through and through. They held hands, looking at him with lifted chins as they waited for their deaths.

“It’s better this way,” he said softly before pointing his wand at each of them. “Obliviate! Obliviate!” As the memory charms hit them, they fell backwards. He closed his eyes to concentrate and waved his wand, Apparating to the garden outside the house. He didn’t remember his own parents’ deaths, not having been present; he didn’t think it was a memory he would want. And this way, they wouldn’t remember his face, nor Barty’s. He thought of the two children, having no one but each other now as he pointed his wand skyward and cried out another incantation, his thoughts as dark as they’d ever been as he remembered the grief and anguish he’d first felt upon learning of being orphaned by Aurors killing his parents.

Morsmordre!”

The light shot from his wand and a ghostly green shape flew up over the house: an enormous skull with a snake for a tongue, creeping slowly out of the mouth. He stared up at it, shivering despite the warm summer evening. He’d said he would take care of the younger children, and he had; he had prevented them from being able to identify the Death Eaters who had invaded their home. He hadn’t said what he’d meant by ‘take care of them.’

When he arrived at Barty’s parents’ house, where they’d agreed to meet, he found Barty sitting outside in the garden, idly using his wand to make bubbles float across the fish pond that ornamented the center of the rather formal landscaping. He reclined on a patch of lawn as he did this, looking rather pleased with himself. Severus felt like going off to retch, but he couldn’t afford to. He threw himself down on the grass next to his partner in crime and stared up at the indifferent stars, hoping he could maintain his composure at least a little longer.

“So. Is it all done?”

Severus grunted in the affirmative. “Quite a nice Dark Mark I conjured as well, if I do say so myself.”

“Well then,” Barty said after a while. “We should go report.”

Severus jerked his head up, having been watching London speed by the windows of the taxi while Barty still held his wand to the driver’s neck. Somehow his memory of what Barty had said on the night the Carmichaels were killed and what he was saying in the taxi now had merged, confusing Severus.

“What did you say?”

“I said that after we have some fun with this bloke, we should go report.”

Severus swallowed. “What kind of fun?” he asked nervously. The reason why they'd been bolting out of the Leaky Cauldron was that they had just destroyed the Diagon Alley business of a bookbinder who had been working on a book about their Master. Such a thing couldn’t be allowed, of course. Severus was glad that they’d done it at night, on a Saturday, and that no people had been injured. The man would no longer have a way to earn his living, of course, but surely that was better than being dead? Severus had watched Barty fire the Dark Mark over the ruined building and the pair of them had Apparated to a room they’d already paid for above the bar at the Leaky Cauldron. They crept down the stairs and out the door leading to Muggle London when the pub patrons had all scrambled for the back of the pub, rushing to see what the noise was about. No one noticed them rush out the door. Barty was chuckling as they went.

“Why can’t we just go report now?” Severus asked dryly, wishing Barty didn’t enjoy mayhem quite so much.

“Because we’re bloody having fun, that’s why!” Barty informed him, putting his wand under Severus’ rather large nose, looking at him darkly. The moment the driver felt the wand leave his neck, he abruptly turned to the right and caused the car to drive up onto the pavement part of the way, so that only the two left wheels were still in the street. “Bloody hell!” Barty cried as the driver opened his door and sprang out of the taxi, starting to run away from them as fast as he could. There was one man nearby, sitting in a doorway, looking as though he was very drunk and would be spending the night there. Impatient at having lost his quarry, Barty pointed his wand at him, outraged. Severus turned his head, unprepared for the vehemence of Barty’s reaction, and a second later he saw not the filthy, drunken man who’d been before them but a dirty-looking beige ferret. Barty smirked.

“Go on then, you,” he said to the ferret. “See how long you last with the feral cats of London on your trail.” The animal looked up at the two of them for only a split second before skittering off as quickly as it could. Severus crossed his arms and glared at Barty.

“When you’re quite done behaving like a twelve-year-old...”

“A twelve-year-old couldn’t do that sort of Transfiguration, Sev. I’m rather fond of that one. And people like ferrets; maybe a little boy will make him his pet. Some ferret-loving lad could set him up in a nice cage and feed him table scraps. A better life than the one he was having, surely.” Barty looked at him suspiciously. “You’re not being protective of Muggles, are you Sev?”

Severus Snape sneered at him. “Of course not. You know me better than that.”

Barty looked shrewdly at him. “Yeah, I thought I did. Then it turned out that you memory charmed those kids instead of cursing them properly.”

Severus was feeling very irritated. “That was last summer! Are you still going on about that? First, they weren’t Muggles. Second, I said I’d take care of them. That’s what I meant. So they couldn’t identify us. We did exactly what we were sent to do--eliminate the parents and elder son. The Dark Lord expects his orders to be followed to the letter. I had no desire to have him berate me for overstepping. After all--he didn’t fault us for the younger children remaining alive, did he? Trust me, if he felt we’d made a mistake or hadn’t followed his orders precisely, we’d have known.”

He in fact hadn’t known this when he’d decided to put the memory charms on the children, but after the fact, he’d had a private audience with Voldemort, which he didn’t feel like divulging to Barty Crouch. Severus had thought he was going to be tortured, or worse, killed, for failing to put the Killing Curse on the younger Carmichael children, but instead Voldemort had commended him upon carrying out his orders exactly as he’d given them.

“I had not thought about whether to spare the others,” he acknowledged in his strangely-hypnotic voice, gesturing carelessly toward invisible children, tossing invisible curses their way. “But I do rather like the idea of a sundered family. It is far more effective than simply getting rid of all of them; that breeds forgetfulness. The whole lot of them could simply be put out of everyone’s minds if they had all been killed. This way, with survivors, that is not possible. They are constant reminders to everyone around them. And even though the children do not remember everything, they do know what happened. They know that I wanted their parents and brother dead and so it was done. They know to fear me, to fear to say my very name, lest it summon me.” He chuckled; it was an awful sound. “People used to think that about the devil. And they thought they were so clever. ‘Well, we shall call him Old Nick, he shall never know who we mean.’” More eerie laughter. “And now I am 'You-Know-Who.' And 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.'” He grinned at Severus, a ghastly effect. “You have helped to maintain that mystique, Snape. You are a good and loyal servant.” He paused, surveying Severus closely. “Unfortunately, I had a dream that that was the wrong family.” He shrugged. “I shall have Wormtail work harder to determine who the members of the Triangle are. You have served me well. You may go.”

Severus had Disapparated back to his uncle’s flat that night, first collapsing onto his bed, then crawling to the bathroom to spew into the toilet.

The wrong family.

His stomach had been roiling inside him and then it finally happened, the release, and he was depositing everything he’d eaten that day into the toilet.

The wrong family.

He couldn't believe this was happening. He was an accomplice to murder, and it wasn’t even the right family! He had continued to retch and barely noticed when his uncle appeared in the doorway, looking disgusted with him.

“Told ye before, Saiverus. Ef ye can’t hold yer licker, ye shouldnae even try.” His uncle had left, shaking his head in disgust. Severus had let him assume that he’d been out drinking. If there was ever a question of where he’d been, he’d have something of an alibi. The previous summer, he had let his uncle think he was out drinking quite a lot. Sometimes he actually had gone drinking after doing his Death-Eaterly duties. It helped to take the edge off the guilt--for a little while.

But he didn't think he would go to get a drink this evening; all they had done this time was to destroy the bookbinder's and turn a homeless drunk into a ferret. He and Barty watched the small animal disappear, running swiftly away from them. Severus turned to Barty. “I’m tired. I made my uncle think I went to bed hours ago. I need to Apparate back to my bedroom, so he doesn’t suspect I’ve left the flat. I’ll see you in a few days.”

Barty nodded. “Good work tonight, Sev,” he said with a grin. He slapped Severus on the back. “Get some rest; you’ve earned it.”

With a pop! he Disapparated. Severus looked around cautiously, then climbed back into the taxi, to Disapparate from there. When he arrived in his small bedroom in his uncle’s flat, he felt emotionally drained and yet too restless to sleep. He laid on top of the covers, fully clothed still, staring at the dark ceiling, wondering how on earth he could go on like this. How much longer would he be able to avoid really hurting or even killing someone? So far he’d managed to please Voldemort, but for how much longer would that be true?

As he had for more than six months, he saw again the faces of the Carmichael children, unflinching, in the moment before his memory charm hit them, when they were most likely expecting the Killing Curse. They had shown bravery beyond their years. Why couldn’t he be like them and stand up to Barty, stand up to Voldemort?

Why? Because he’d be dead in a split second, that’s why.

Voldemort had spoken of who was in the ‘Triangle.’ Severus didn’t understand, but it seemed to have something to do with the prophecy he was so concerned about. For some reason the name 'Wormtail' was familiar to him, but he couldn't say why. He did know that whoever he was, he hated this Wormtail with a passion. Was he just imcompetent, or was he having the wrong people targeted on purpose? Was he using the Dark Lord to carry out his own personal vendetta? Severus wasn't sure whether or not he hoped the real people in the Triangle would be found and killed, to put an end to it. At the very least, no more people would be killed mistakenly.

Whoever you are, you lot in this Triangle, he thought, I hope you bloody well take care of Voldemort soon. Before I’m sent to take care of you.

* * * * *

Thanks to my lovely new beta, Emily!