When Magic is Useless

When Magic is Useless: Chapter 2

Warning: The rating shouldn't be more than R, with some adult issues but nothing graphic. But this might be a slash story eventually, so squeamish people beware.

Please read- Salazar is based on Metatron- the character played by Alan Rickman in Dogma

1 ½ years later- The summer before Lily and Art's fourth year at Hogwarts

"Mum, I need some more things before I start at Hogwarts," Rowena whined.

Hermione groaned. "Love, I know you do. But you still have more than a month before the term starts. I know that you're nervous, but please don't worry. If you need anything you can just owl, and if it is urgent, ask your grandfathers and they will bring it immediately. And then you have the multitude of cousins that come with the Weasley red hair."

Rowena relaxed for the first time since receiving her letter. Art and Grandfather Sirius would be more than happy to get her anything she wanted from the Joke shops. After all, when he could spare time from helping the now quite old Hagrid with groundskeeping, Sirius often made pranks to sell in Hogsmeade. Moreover, while Grandfather Remus was a little stricter and took his job as Professor of Defense against the Dark Arts and Deputy Headmaster seriously, he was the type of person that you could tell anything to without becoming embarrassed. They would all take care of her.

Smiling sunnily at her mother, Ro hugged Hermione tight before bounding upstairs to drive her little brother insane. Poor Phillip would be the only one at home for the next nine years. Hermione smiled to herself as she folded the laundry, knowing that the house would seem empty without Ro. Phillip was by no means as studious or well-mannered as Alexander had been, but he was no great prankster either. Ron summarized his children by saying that Ro pulled pranks, Alexander would have admonished her but Phillip stood by and laughed. Despite the pain it caused, Ron always made sure to include what Alexander would have been so Rowena would not forget her brother, and Phillip would get to know him.

Hermione sighed. She did not want to forget her son either, but she had relegated a few minutes every morning and every night to think of Alexander. She hated brooding over the loss in the middle of the day; her children always knew and she had read a great deal about psychological damage to the siblings of children who were... No, she would not think it.

The door slammed. "Honey, I'm home!" Ron's voice resonated through the house.

Although his children came running, his wife remained in the living room. Sighing, she wondered how it was that no matter how much she limited television viewing hours for her husband and children, it always seemed as if Ron watched too much. The exasperated smile was still on her face when Ron came into the room.

"I ordered the kids to start dinner. What's so funny?"

"Nothing really. How was work?"

"All right. Harry and I went to investigate some monster stories in Scotland to make sure this wasn't a magic thing."

Hermione's mouth dropped open. "Not the Loch Ness monster?"

Nonchalantly biting into an apple, Ron shrugged. "Maybe. You'll find out more tomorrow when you go the site with Draco. Apparently wizards have been investigating it for years and years, without coming to any definite conclusions, so good luck. But on to more important matters than our more than successful Auror careers- is there anything on the itinerary tomorrow?"

Preparing for battle, Hermione lifted her chin. Since her husband was almost a foot taller than her, the gesture was more for her confidence levels than for his benefit. "Yes, I need you to take Rowena to see Dr. Richards. Tomorrow is his only open day this week, and we need her to have her second shot before she leaves for Hogwarts. Otherwise I would have chosen a day where I was at home; I know how nervous you are when you go to the Muggle clinic."

"Hermione," Ron interrupted, "Why does she have to go at all? She is going to a school where there is a nurse available at all times, who knows magic to cure diseases Muggles don't even know exist."

"Yes, but she is going to live in a dormitory, which is a breeding house for diseases, and some of them might be more common to Muggle-borns, which wizards aren't familiar with. My s- my daughter will not go to Hogwarts until she is properly inoculated, and that is final."

It wasn't. Matters were never final in the Weasley family, and half an hour later Rowena could still hear them arguing when she came to announce dinner. She slumped against the door, remembering the night she and her elder brother had sat together and listened to a similar argument before Alexander began his first semester at Hogwarts.

Mum would win. She always did, like the last time. Alexander had been inoculated with every vaccine known to Muggles before he started Hogwarts, but none of them had protected him from death. Perhaps her slightly religious Muggle grandfather was correct when he said that the being that controlled life was rather quirky at moments. She did not understand then that Hermione had always known inoculations would not protect her son from violence; she had, after all, fought a war before she was eighteen and was one of the best Aurors in England, and two of the others were her husband and best friend. But Hermione could not control the violence; there are no inoculations for kidnapping. All she could control was his immunity to certain diseases, and she was damned if she would let anything hurt her children if she could protect them.

*

Art walked in through their chimney the next morning. Since Percy and Ron resembled each other closely, and both Art and Alexander looked like their fathers, most strangers had thought that the boys were twins. Even now it caused Hermione a twinge of pain to see him. Sometimes, when he walked through the door unexpectedly, her heart jumped into her chest and for one second she was sure that her son had returned. And then in the next second she realized the truth and had to remind herself that her son would never return.

But she loved her nephew, and always welcomed him affectionately and sincerely. He hugged Ron and Hermione, and they discussed Percy's new promotion.

"Well, Deputy Minister, eh?" Hermione thought with pride of how the Weasley children had showed wizards like the Malfoys what success could be achieved by even the poorest families as long as everyone worked hard and for the right reasons.

"Yeah, he's as proud as a peacock. Granddad is a shade of red that probably matches what his hair used to be, if he ever had any"- here Hermione interrupted him to reprimand him for his irreverence- "and Grandmum has already owled fifty percent half of the Weasley clan. But the best thing was what Sirius did. He sent Dad a letter claiming that the job offer was rescinded, and then right at the end there was a postscript identifying the author and admitting the letter was a hoax. You should have seen Dad change colors."

Ron choked on his juice, while his daughter snorted milk all over the kitchen. Hermione, waving her wand and murmuring a cleaning spell absentmindedly, was not so amused. She had always identified with Percy a little better than her husband or the rest of his brothers did.

"Have you- have you told Fred and George yet?" Ron tried to hold his laughter in to keep his wife from getting upset, but his eyes were alive with unholy glee.

Looking mischievous, Art replied that he had indeed told them earlier. "And they were so disappointed that they hadn't thought of it first."

"So you've already been to see Shawn? Have you told Lily and James yet?" Although she was talking to Art, Rowena was also directing her questions at her parents, silently pleading with them to allow her to visit her friends.

For some reason Art blushed as he replied that he was just about to go to the Potter's house. Ron, confused, was about to remark on his nephew's change of color before Hermione subtly and painfully stepped on his foot. He refrained from asking the obvious question and meekly told Rowena she could go see Jamie if she promised not to burn the house down.

"Oh mum!" Rowena sighed as she ran up to her bedroom to get ready to leave.

"Where's the little guy?" Art asked, looking around for Phillip.

"Ginny picked him up a few hours ago. She and Draco are taking the little ones to Remus and Sirius for the day."

"No kidding!" Art looked a little envious. There was little the Weasley/Potter children liked more than to spend the day with the surviving Marauders at Hogwarts. Remus was the wise one who always knew what to say to make people feel better about themselves, and while he was strict when he needed to be, he had a wry and unexpectedly wicked sense of humor. Sirius, on the other hand, could always be counted upon to find new and original ways to prank parents and teachers. Transfiguration classes had become a lot more fun since McGonagall gave up teaching to become Headmistress and Sirius took over her post.

Moreover, visiting Hogwarts met meeting Severus and his son, Salazar. Although Snape had not mellowed any since Ron and Harry's years at school, for some reason the next generation loved to spend time with him. They hated him as a Professor, but enjoyed sparring verbally with the sarcastic and morose Potions Professor.

And there was Salazar... Born during Harry and Ron's fifth year at Hogwarts, he had remained a closely guarded secret until his Muggle-born mother was killed in the second War. Upon the end of the war, Snape brought him to Hogwarts and raised him there. Although fatherhood and freedom from the Dark Lord had taken away a great deal of Severus' anger and made him a little more tolerant of the world and Harry Potter, grief and his natural bitterness at a still suspicious magical community made him a far from ideal candidate for single parenthood. Remus and Sirius, also living and teaching at Hogwarts after the war, helped him raise his son so that Salazar was as close to them as he was to his own father. Although Salazar was a Slytherin, and bore an uncanny resemblance to his father, the Marauders' influence was obvious. He had a penchant for Muggle clothing, not the leather that Sirius favored but loose and comfortable clothes. While he was as sarcastic and biting as his father, he was also kind, and had Lupin's ability to treat children like adults while still caring for them. He had been a prefect for two years before becoming Head boy, and as his particular gift was charms he was living at Hogwarts and working on wards to keep the school safe without the late Professor Dumbledore's wards. On top of maintaining and improving existing wards, Laz researched new charms to protect Hogwarts and break dangerous curses. Although few Gryffindors liked the idea of a Slytherin protecting Hogwarts, Art's parents included, it was generally accepted that Snape had bought trust for himself and his son with his dangerous work during the Second War.

Although Laz was not a prankster, he was popular with the Weasley clan because he made them laugh. He was never civil to them, never remembered birthdays, and was often rude if they disturbed him, but they had always known with the instinct of the very young that he was good. He had been a prefect and later Head boy when Art and Lily were in their first and second years at Hogwarts, and he had been as comfortable taking points away from Gryffindor as his father. However, he never cheated and did not take points away when he believed that the prank was played on someone who richly deserved it.

But what Art would never forget was the way Laz took care of him that semester when the young Weasley boy returned to school without his best friend. Laz sat with Art for countless hours, speaking kindly and with the wisdom of his godfather Remus. As soon as he felt it was time, Laz returned to his biting self, but he was there when he was needed. And at the end of the day, there was little more that anyone could ask for.

Rowena threw her shoe at Art, trying to bring his attention back to the present. "Well, are we going?"

Wondering for a minute if he should be offended and leave her at home, Art glared at his little cousin and rubbed his stomach where the sneaker had hit him. But then he glanced at her mother. Hermione was about to ground her daughter for her unorthodox method of claiming someone's attention, and after Alexander's death his cousin had sworn to look after his siblings, even if that meant saving them from their rather strict mother.

"Let's go, Ro. Don't worry about it, Aunt Hermione."

And then they were gone.

*

He watched them walk away, well hidden in the bushes and too far to set off any wards. He knew where to hide.

He had been watching for a while. Long enough to see that there was happiness here, and beauty, neither of which he had had much experience with lately. In the morning, he had seen two children playing with water from a garden hose under the hot sun. Then he had seen the look on the face of the little boy when a car had pulled up, and other children had called, "Phillip! Phillip!" Now there was the girl, walking away with her cousin, as comfortable with him as if he were her brother.

And now, he could hear the parents, who had come to the front door to see the children off.

Ron, standing behind his wife, put his arms around her waist and bent slightly to kiss her neck. "Ah, alone at last!"

Hermione giggled. "I know, and I keep telling myself that it is only a few more weeks until Ro goes to Hogwarts. No more explosions, no more fake spiders in your briefcase..."

"Thank Merlin for that! But what, my dear, should we do in this oh-so-rare time we have alone, together?"

She turned to smile coyly into his eyes. "Why, Mr. Weasley, whatever are you suggesting?"

Ron grinned back at her. "My dear Mrs. Weasley, nothing untoward. I merely recognize that by some miracle the Ministry feels no need for Aurors, our son is away with friends, and our daughter is going to set our best friend's house on fire today instead of ours. And I do think it is a terrible waste of miracles if we don't take advantage of them."

Laughing, they entered the house, unaware of the boy behind the bushes, who had heard every word they said. They could not know that their innocent conversation had prompted a decision that would leave them ignorant of his very existence for a great many more years.

*

The boy stumbled into a village some days after his aborted trip to London. He had no idea where he was going, or what he would do. Once he had dreams, but that person he had been was dead. And the one he had become knew better than to believe that life could be anything but what it was.

"Mr. Snape, it was pleasure doing business with you as always. How is Hogwarts?"

"Fine, as always, Mr. Bezoar. I'll be seeing you again soon when my father needs more ingredients."

"Yes, yes. He works very hard, doesn't he? And of course, he doesn't only need these ingredients for his classes. He brews the Wolfsbane potion for a werewolf staff member, doesn't he? Merlin, what have we come to when a werewolf teaches our children?"

Salazar's bored expression vanished. He had little patience for sermonizers, but he could not abide any criticism of his rather unorthodox family. Remus, especially, was the one he felt a need to protect. His godfather had not only played the most active role in his upbringing after his father, but had also spent a great many years suffering from acute pain. Laz had nothing but contempt for those who would add to that pain with their hatred, bigotry and stupidity.

"We have perhaps grown as a society and learned to judge someone by their merits. That 'werewolf,' as you so easily brand him when he is so much more, is one of the best teachers Hogwarts has ever had. In case you are unaware of this little fact, he is being considered for the position of Deputy Headmaster, after Professor Flitwick decided it took too much time from his class work and the research we are doing together." Using his long, hooked nose to great advantage, he withered Mr. Bezoar with one stare and turned away.

The boy was caught off-guard. He was unable hide his expression of anger at what the chemist had said, or his fear of the man in front of him. That fear was intensified ten-fold when Salazar grasped him by the arm and pulled him away. Dragging him to a quiet corner away from prying eyes and ears, he remonstrated with the boy at a tone that managed to be both stern and gentle. "Child, how long ago were you bitten? Don't you yet know any better than to betray yourself in this manner? Merlin, your resentment and fear was obvious a mile away! And from that disgusting old man's conversation, it seems obvious to an infrequent visitor like me that this town is just as tolerant as the rest of the community towards your kind." He shook the boy slightly, wondering how a werewolf could be so stupid.

Squirming away, the boy stood straight instead of hunching down, thus putting him at a height equal to that of Salazar. The Slytherin "Keeper of the Wards," or more simply "Ward-keeper," as his job position was called, was shocked to realize that the "child" was not more than four or five years younger than him. Before he could say anything, the boy reached out and grabbed the silver Slytherin pin on Salazar's robes and held it for a minute before releasing it and displaying his unmarked hand.

"Not a werewolf, eh? Well, then you must know of one, and feel angry on his/her behalf. But why were you afraid of me then?" The boy realized his mistake in correcting Salazar as he was subjected to the young man's intense scrutiny.

Slowly, Salazar's eyes widened. "If it weren't for what I know, I'd think... But your hair is brown, nay, there is red underneath. This must be Muggle magic, for I know of nothing wizarding that would allow the original hair color to come back so slowly, and in patches. But I know the red, you're a Weasley."

The boy said nothing, only began to tremble as Salazar turned his chin slightly to see it better in the light. "That profile- I knew it well. I believe I saw it last when a young boy was boarding the train at Hogwarts. I would have taken you for Art, but you look as if you have forgotten to smile."

Pulling away, he stayed silent. "But how is it possible? Alexander Weasley is dead; the clock's hands moved to 'Death,' and I was at your funeral."

At that, the boy looked him straight in the eye again, and for the first time in a year and a half, spoke to Salazar Snape. "Alexander Weasley is dead."

For a minute, Laz looked every inch his father as he grabbed the boy's throat with hands that dug in as if they would never let go. "Don't lie to me, boy! I remember the party when you were born, and the great joy felt by everyone present. And I remember even better the devastating pain suffered by those who love you..."

"No, not me!" He was screaming now. "That was for Alexander Weasley, who died a year and a half ago when he was in a dark cellar with a sick, pervert Muggle! My name is"- he looked around for inspiration, and finally let his eyes fall on one of the boxes in Laz' hands- "Ash, Ash Winton."

"Is that the name the Muggle gave you?" Laz' voice was gentle again, as he tried to understand what could make a Weasley so afraid to return home.

"No! He called me Tom, but I don't want to talk about him. Tom is dead too. Tom never existed, except in his mind. I don't want to talk about him. But the boy who was Alexander Weasley is dead, and I am Ash Winton."

Looking down at his hands in confusion, Laz happened to read the title of the box containing Ashwinder's eggs and understood what the boy was saying. Raising his head, he asked why Ash did not want to go home. "I know you still love the people. The look on your face when you heard what that man said about your Grandfather Remus was proof positive."

"It isn't my home anymore. I was there a few days ago, and I saw how they had moved on. Everything there is so good, Salazar. You can't tell me you don't see that."

Salazar smiled wryly. He had been brought up by a former Death Eater who had given his youth and the one woman he had loved for a life of espionage, a former convict who spent twelve years in a prison worse than anything Muggles could invent and a man, who despite his innate goodness was a Dark creature. He would have been a great deal closer to the Weasley/Potter children if he had been able to spend time at their homes without wondering how they survived being so happy.

But he also knew that few had suffered as they had during the war. Harry, Hermione and Ron had been the main targets of Voldemort's rage during the second war, and had lost many friends and family. The Weasley family was by no means intact. Fred lost his girlfriend a year after they graduated; Bill was subject to the Cruciatus curse for a long time and had never really recovered his former joie de vivre and sunny, reckless Charlie had not survived the war at all. Charlie's death was Voldemort's way of warning Harry that he would come for him. No, they may have created happy homes, but they knew how to survive pain and loss.

He said something of the sort out loud, but Ash shook his head. "If I had only been missing, or had lost a good friend or close family member... Oh Laz, it isn't that I think they can't handle what happened to me. It's just, well, I did things, bad things, and I don't think I can quite go back to that house and a family. There is a point where you just can't go back, your bridges are all burned, and that is it."

"What did you do that you think separates you from your family?" By this time Laz had found a cool place to sit, and both teenagers were comfortably sprawled on the ground, so that Ash could talk while looking at the sky and completely avoiding Laz' eyes.

Clearing his throat, Ash closed his mind to the memories and spoke almost clinically. "The Muggle who took me is what they call a 'pedophile.' A pedophile is"- here he was interrupted by Laz' testy voice stating that he knew very well what a pedophile was- "So you know. Well, in the beginning he forced it. But by the end, I was a willing participant. In fact, I was sometimes even the instigator."

Laz closed his eyes. Like his father, he sought recourse from his boiling emotions in sarcasm and sneers, but he could not escape this. Swallowing the tears that he had not allowed to fall since his mother's death, he spoke in a voice that was unaccountably dry and angry in a strangely reassuring way. "It was not your doing. No, don't interrupt; just hear me out. I don't care if you walked into his bed and seduced him every night; it was still rape. And believe me, when a man does it to a child, it is always rape. If you were kidnapped and held against your will in the beginning, it was rape. And if hours, days, months or years of being treated like that made you want to control it, or even want it to some degree, it was rape because you would not have chosen sex with a pedophile when you were thirteen if you had had normal a normal sexual awakening."

"No, don't pretend to make it alright! You can't, because it was wrong, and ugly, and more evil than Voldemort. You don't understand because it never happened to you."

Realizing that he could not reason with him, but still determined to take him home, Laz stalled for time. "How did you get away?"

Ash laughed, but it was not a nice sound. "I could have walked out any time these six months. I told you I chose it. I dyed my hair so that I would not be found, and I've been going to school like a Muggle. But then he brought in another boy. This boy was frightened, and I could see he wanted to do to this boy what was done to me, so I made sure the boy got out. I managed to do it without the boy seeing me very well, so if he tells the police all they will know is a tall brown-haired young man helped a little boy escape a pedophile. But I did not leave because I was upset about what was almost done to the boy. I was jealous that the Muggle wanted someone else."

Laz nodded his head as he understood the younger boy's demons. "And you think that is wrong? I'm sure you beat yourself up for responding to his caresses, his kisses, without once considering the fact that it was a normal response to stimuli. And that jealousy is a normal emotion when the one person you had constant contact with for over a year chose someone else. Stupid boy, your parents will understand"-

"I told you I'm not going back. If you make me, my family will really bury me by the end of the year, I promise you that. And it will be on your head. Believe me, I will not survive all that concern, and if you know my father you know he will find it impossible to survive what was done to me. They've already buried me and gone on, you know that. What is the point of stirring things up? There is ugliness in me, and it may or may not consume me in the end if you let me make my own life. But if you try to make me Alexander Weasley again, it will most certainly tear me apart. I need to be on my own. If I go back, they'll expect me to be an innocent boy, as I once was, and I am not that anymore. I swear, I will kill myself if I go back."

If he had sworn it with passion, Salazar would have Apparated to London with him in a second. But he said it softly and sincerely, so the older boy took it as seriously as it was meant. He knew he could not force this boy, no young man, to go home. It would have to be Ash's decision.

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know. I once dreamed of being a healer after Hogwarts, but of course now..."

Maybe there was still something he could do for Ash. Although circumstances had changed his character, the core that was Alexander Weasley had to still be there somewhere, and maybe this was a way of bringing it to the front. "I can get you another identity, teach you a glamour spell, and then get you into the healer school that is an alternative to Hogwarts. Those who want to be powerful wizards go through Hogwarts first, but those who just want to be healers can go straight into the school at fourteen after a regular wizarding primary school. I'll get you a wand, and you can start there in September. If I get you some books, do you think you can make up the year and a half you lost in a few weeks?"

Sounding every inch his mother's son, Ash answered that he would love to study those books again. "It sounds difficult, but I can try. Do you promise not to tell anyone where I am?"

"Yes, yes," Laz replied, annoyance and impatience clear in his tone. "On one condition- when you feel that you are ready to survive being a Weasley again, you will go back. I'll hand the controls over to you if you swear to try to drive."

And so the pact was sealed. Laz performed his part faithfully, but his busy schedule and inability to disappear without giving a valid reason for long periods of time meant that he only met Ash briefly to drop things off. He took him once to Diagon Alley to get a wand, where they barely missed running into family members. As his wand, the same as his mother's, was common, Mr. Ollivander had no idea who he was doing business with.

Finally, Laz dropped Ash off at the healer's academy, with some money and school supplies. Ash, who now barely resembled a Weasley, turned to thank him for what he had done.

"No, don't thank me. I'm still not sure I've done the right thing."

"You have. They are all right, and I will be."

And with those words, Ash Winton walked into the academy without looking back. And though they had said nothing, it was understood that Laz would not come back, or try to find Ash again. Instead they would each go their separate ways, and it was up to Merlin if they were ever going to meet again.