Angelinus

Chapter 18

Getting Serious

Liz Albright was waiting for them as they apparated into the yard and hurried inside to see Angelinus. She smiled as the two men doted on the little girl but neither of them suggested waking her from her charmed sleep. Giving them a moment, she cleared her throat and held out a slip of paper. It was a series of apparation coordinates that would take them out of the country and back to England in the most unobtrusive way possible. Severus nodded his thanks as Remus gathered up Angelinus and took the direction straight from the paper where Severus pointed. When he disapparated there was no sign of Severus but he hadn't expected there to be. Instead, he apparated to another destination, one chosen at random from the list, making his own route out of Spain and into Portugal then up to the Isle of Mann across to Southampton and finally to London.

He arrived at the Leaky Cauldron and nodded as Tom pointed upstairs very unobtrusively. Severus was in a small room at the end of a corridor, lying back wearily on the sofa. "Good, you made it. How is she? Still sleeping? Good. I just finished speaking to Hermione and we can go straight away. The Manor is warded against everything up to and including dragon attack. Hermione thinks her girl will be utterly delighted to have a visit from her best friend and Angelinus will be able to stay as long as we need her to."

"Alright, I see the necessity but that doesn't mean I have to like it," Remus agreed. "How are you holding up Sev, you look drawn?"

Waving him off irritably, Severus rose and tossed a handful of floo powder into the fire. "Go," he commanded, stepping aside. As Remus left, he noticed Severus was slumping even further and as soon as he stepped out of the fire, he thrust the child at the nearest pair of hands and poised to catch his mate as he arrived.

To his credit, Severus made two steps out of the fire before his knees buckled and he almost broke his nose for the second time in his life. Gathering up his long length with surprising ease, Remus turned to Hermione who quickly pointed them to a chaise lounge in the foyer.

"Not an auspicious start to the visit," Hermione commented as her former teacher laid his husband down and began unpeeling his robe to reveal a narrow chest with many deep lacerations that bled sluggishly. "Oh boy shades of SVW! How bad is it?" she asked, kneeling to help.

"I wouldn't get too enthusiastic with undoing those buttons, they stripped him naked before getting to work and there was only time to shove a robe on for decency before we apparated out," Remus commented dryly.

"I've seen naked men before," Hermione commented distractedly as she eased the fabric from one cut that had bled and dried. "No-one should apparate when in this sort of state. We may have to get a medi-wizard in, it looks bad."

"That's probably a good idea. The Muggle was laying into his kidneys and you know Poppy never managed to repair the right one."

"I cast vitalis protegus before they started," Severus muttered, and then sat up with an indignant squawk, pulling his clothes back around him. "Are you mad Remus? Go away, Miss Granger, this instant!"

Hermione grinned, a perfect Malfoy smirk as her potions professor blushed bright scarlet. "Relax, you have nothing special over any other man, I do assure you. Now, can you manage the stairs or should we mobilus corpus you? Katie dear, can you floo the medi-wizard for me? Tell him it's an emergency and bring plenty of healing charms. Alfons, call Binky to take Angelinus to the nursery, set up a bed in Galadriel's room for her. Is she charmed? Fine. Call Galadriel before you let Binky wake her. Ah, Katie, what did the medi-wizard say?"

"He'll be here in half a moment Madame."

~~<*>~~

Draco grinned when he saw the two older men installed on his sofa utterly surrounded and swamped by children. Severus was propped in a corner, his legs on the seat and Angelinus curled up in his arms with Galadriel almost draped on top of her. The rest of the children sat on the floor or the older ones draped over the back of the sofa as Remus sat on the cushions by Severus' legs and showed off the holiday snaps with a running commentary from Angelinus, and Severus even putting in odd comments.

"Well, I wondered where everyone had gone," he commented, strolling into the room and bending to kiss Hermione on the lips. His children made rude comments regarding rooms and he waved them away as he greeted his wife properly before turning his attention to guests and offspring. "Good to see you two again. Are you making an extended stay?"

"There has been an incident," Remus said delicately as Severus sketched a salute.

"Daddy! Daddy! Angelinus is going to stay here for a while, and sleep in my room!" Galadriel shrieked and threw herself at her father's knees, hugging him tight.

"Aren't you the lucky one then? Have you lots of plans for fun games and schemes?" Draco teased, hugging the little girl but casting an inquiring look at the two men. "You will have to tell me about the change of plans later."

"I've ordered dinner for six o'clock so you had best change dear," Hermione warned.

It wasn't until all the children were safely ensconced in their beds that the four adults had a chance to discuss the incident. Severus outlined the areas of interrogation the thugs had tried to explore, adding to it the answers the reporter had given him. "They were very keen to find the Malfoy connection, to find out why you were muscling into the trade and how you planned to use the power."

"As well they might be. With the Malfoy wealth and er, reputation, behind their plans they could go anywhere they needed to, including into the best drawing rooms and salons of the upper Pureblood Houses." Draco sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers, forcibly reminding Severus of his father Lucius in that moment. "We have been somewhat successful in infiltrating the layers of secrecy and deception surrounding the trade. We followed up the Crabbe connection most carefully and discretely but it petered out in the middle ranks. Following the connection down from the Muggle side was a little more productive. I made quite a lot of money buying into Logan Laboratories, a small subsidiary of the international conglomerate, which produces 'Sleep Tight' under license. Interesting set-up," Draco mused, sipping his wine thoughtfully. "Remus, you were always one of the best, most intuitive researchers I ever met, able to put obscure facts together and draw conclusions from almost nothing. How are you with computers? Humm, that's a pity. Hermione, Honey, Sweetheart, Beautiful...."

Hermione grinned and blew him a kiss. "That's a lot of sweetening, how bad can it be?"

"You wanna turn the kids over to the Potters or the Weasleys and come to work with me? Show Remus how to use the computers and do a little librarian's 'break and enter'?"

"Do you mean on-line espionage?" Hermione cocked her head, her eyes sparkling.

Draco waggled his eyebrows and nodded slowly.

"Professor Lupin, how would you like to learn a whole new way of seeing information?" Hermione sent the werewolf a sparkling smile.

"I would be delighted Madame Malfoy," Remus accepted with a courtly bow.

"And what might I be doing while you are ensconced in the library?" Severus asked peevishly, his chest and back still paining him.

Draco smiled a purely calculating Slytherin smile. "Humm, I thought we might play Death Eaters Extraordinaire and spread a little terror in the name of Righteousness. I have a mind to do a tour of inspection at Logan Labs with my own 'Chemical Expert'."

Severus simply shook his head. "Dress-ups," he murmured sourly and Draco grinned.

~~<*>~~

Draco never dressed in black; he avoided dragon hide gloves when he could and never, ever carried a cane. He did everything he could think of to avoid looking like his father but today was different. Today he was going to play a part, the part his father had tried to make his own in earnest. Hermione had taken great delight in helping him dress, making sure he was totally arrayed in robes from the uncomfortable underpants out, no nice stretch jersey jockey briefs for him today. Under-robes of the finest cotton and inner robes of smooth, dark green silk were overlaid with outer robes of the finest black velvet, edged in black leather. There was also a cloak with a deep hood and a weighted hem to give it the correct swirl of authority.

Usually Draco wore his hair fairly short and parted on one side but today he had it slicked back, reminiscent of his second year style and charmed it to look longer than it really was. He could never have stood the impressive platinum waterfall his father sported but for today it would be enough. Once the gloves and cane were in place, he stepped in front of the mirror and shuddered in distaste.

"You are not your father, Draco," Hermione reminded him softly, curling her arms around his waist from behind and kissing his ear as he turned in the circle of her arms.

"I do try not to be," he sighed.

"And you succeed admirably but today my Love, you are to be the spoilt little pureblood drama queen I knew and hated in fourth year."

"A Drama queen? Moi? Are you insulting me woman?" Draco asked placing a palm over his heart in mock horror, his eyes teasing and bright.

She giggled and kissed his nose. "That's the one, but with less twinkle in the eyes. Let's go see if Severus is ready."

Severus was decidedly not ready; Severus was suffering a plague of little girls with amazing aplomb. Angelinus and Galadriel were climbing on the stool beside him, brushing his long black hair and plaiting bits of it here and there. Remus sat on the bed and laughed as Severus allowed them to plague him, even holding the ends of plaits when they demanded. Various ribbons and flowers, elastics and frilly scrunchies - which looked colourful and slightly surreal over his night black robes - adorned his ink black hair.

"What on earth...?" Hermione asked with a giggle.

"We're helping Uncle Severus get ready," the girls chorused as Angelinus pinned a shimmery butterfly over his left ear.

"Isn't he pretty? Do you want a flower, Daddy?" Galadriel asked then widened her eyes. "You look silly!" She shrieked with laughter making Angelinus giggle too. "Look Uncle Remus, daddy has his dress-up clothes on."

Grinning at the couple, Remus rose and gathered the little girls up in his arms. "Come on you two terrors, it's time to let Uncle Severus finish getting ready to go to London. He has to look very scary today so I don't think we can go with the pink and yellow scheme." The girls were just as happy to let the werewolf carry them away while Severus smirked at Draco, still crowned with his array of girlish adornments.

"You spoil those kids Severus, you know that? You indulge them far too much." Hermione shook her head and wandered across to see if she could extricate some of the elastics.

Waving her away, Severus ran both his hands though his hair, the odds and ends falling into a neat pile in his lap. Instead of loose and hiding his face, he left some of the plaits in, pulling his hair back to expose his profile in stark relief. Dressed in black as usual, he rose carefully and straightened his robe with a regal sneer, which dismissed Hermione's consideration with contempt. Reaching into the recesses of his outer robe, he extracted something then slid black framed Ray-Bans over his eyes. Hermione drew a deep breath as the man turned to stare at her and she squirmed as she wondered exactly where those black laser eyes were actually looking. With a patented Snape sneer, he turned away and picked up his cloak, swirling it over his shoulders and lifting the hood to cover his head and face completely.

"Ready Draco?"

"Merlin, Severus, you do that so well?" Draco whistled admiringly.

"It's an art form," Severus told him solemnly. "Are you ready?"

They both bowed formally to Hermione before Apparating out to Draco's London office. Their appointment at Logan Laboratories was not until eleven, which gave them time to go over the details Draco had already collected and add them to the facts Severus and Remus had brought in. There wasn't much, no real pattern, or no obvious pattern that anyone could see yet but then, finding patterns in odd bits of information was Remus' talent and forte.