“Let me be,” Dierna moved the letters out of her sister’s reach, “they don’t concern you.”
“Love letters are they?” Viviane reached for them. “Come on, they can’t be that bad…”
“Viviane, stop it! And they are not love letters!” Dierna growled as she dove out of the way, letters safely kept out of reach. “Honestly, I don’t know why people can’t just leave me alone…”
“Do I need to separate you two?” Colin spoke from his chair by the fire, only half joking. The two of them had been at it for most of the day, and he had no idea why. If he asked them he’d wager that they didn’t know why either.
“No, because I’m leaving,” Dierna stuffed the letters in her bag and threw it over her shoulder. “I have some work to do.”
“It’s the middle of the holidays and well after curfew,” Viviane called after her.
“I won’t get caught out,” Dierna assured her as she wrapped her fingers around the silver door handle, “besides, I really do have work to do.” In a manner of speaking, of course. What she really wanted was to do was talk with Eric. She had been doing a lot of that lately. She had even shown him a few of the letters she had been receiving steadily for the last couple of weeks now. He had given her a little bit of advice, but told her he could do no more. So she let them keep piling up and continued to remain indecisive. She really wanted to talk to her father about them… but it just wasn’t a good time to do so.
“What are you doing out and about at this hour?” Eric asked as she approached his bed.
“Just looking for something to do.”
“Well then,” Eric reached for the book beside his bed, “shall I set another lesson for you?” He had started to give her small challenges, information and such to look up that would vastly expand her knowledge in the field of Potions. The sort of things that most people in the profession did not learn until they were midway through their apprenticeships. With the time that she spent visiting him he felt it only fair to give her a head start.
Dierna shrugged, “I don’t care.”
Eric raised an eyebrow and her downtrodden tone, but passed over it. “How is your own research going, you had two projects you were working on, is that correct?”
“Yes, but I’ve given up on them…”
“Never give up child. Not unless you have reason to. What is it that you were working on?” He already knew of course. In fact, he had already read through most of her notes. It was amazing how much one could convince a House Elf to do. It had been very easy to get one to sneak into the Gryffindor dorms to bring him what he wanted and then return it without it being missed.
Dierna tossed her bag to the ground as she sat down on the chair next to Eric’s bed. “I was working on a sleeping potion and a modified version of Veritaserum.”
“And what did you discover?”
She shrugged, “I gave up on the Veritaserum first, it’s impossible. And the sleeping potion… I feel like I was close to something… I just don’t know what…”
“Very good child,” Eric twisted his face into a form of a smile, “I believe your intuitions serve you very well. That is a good quality to possess. The Veritaserum is in fact far beyond you, probably far beyond any Potions’ Master, dead or alive. There is a reason why only one version has ever been made. As for the other… an admirable ambition, but I wonder if it has escaped you because your heart is not in it.”
Dierna shrugged again, “my heart hasn’t been in much of anything recently,” she pushed at an unevenly cut stone with the toe of her shoe. She wished she felt at least some sort of ambition, but there wasn’t anything. Not now at least. She no longer wanted to be married, eventually yes, but that dream had lost much of its luster. She still loved Stefan. She had just finally realized that she wasn’t ready. But even Potions had started to lose its appeal. It was although her life had come to a standstill, except everyone else kept moving on around her.
“I would suggest starting a new project.”
“Like what?”
“That I cannot tell you, you must find something that has meaning for you. Something that lives in you. The greatest discoveries ever made are ones that have heart.” He scowled while he said this to discourage any sort of amusement at his sentimentality.
Dierna thought that over for a moment, but decided she would just have to come back to it later. “I received another letter today.”
“Where from?”
“Constantinople.”
Eric fingered the pipe that he had finally gotten back from Poppy thoughtfully, “as I have told you before, I cannot make any decisions for you. This is a hurdle you must cross on your own.”
“It scares me…”
“As well it should. Life is a terrifying thing and should be treated with a great deal of respect. A little healthy fear doesn’t hurt a thing.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
“What is it?” Voldemort clasped his long skeletal fingers together behind his back, not turning to face his groveling followers. At least two of them had the decency to grovel. The two masked Death Eaters had pressed themselves to the ground, their fingers trying to clutch at the wooden planks as they prostrated themselves. The infuriating demons were casually standing there, as though they were not in the presence of their leader. He was even angrier at the world than usual. The New Year had brought him no closer to immortality and they had the gall to stand there facing him as equals.
“Snape’s wife is even closer to death,” Vanth carefully examined her perfectly manicured nails.
“And?” His voice was iron-hard and laced with venom.
Vanth lifted one delicate shoulder in half a shrug, her voice bored, “that’s it. It’s been rather slow news-wise. Our spy has little to keep herself occupied. Everyone is still reeling from the attack.” She thought for a moment, “oh, and the littlest one has taken to spending a great deal of time by the lake…”
“I trust you are keeping a very close eye on her. I may very well have plans for her,” he allowed himself a small smile as he thought about destroying Snape’s family, one member at a time. And then keeping him alive while he begged for death. It was a pleasant thought. Or perhaps he would keep the youngest one as a pet, she would be easy enough to brainwash and train for his own purposes.
“Oh, I assure you, we have been keeping a very close eye on her,” she shifted her eyes to Charun. “Isn’t that right?” she lifted her chin ever so slightly, making sure that he knew the right answer.
“Of course, we have been doing exactly as you ordered us,” the blue-skinned demon replied. He noticed the look of smug satisfaction on Vanth’s face and wondered what it meant. She had been feeling very pleased with herself of late. But he wasn’t sure why.
Voldemort gave the slightest of nods, “make sure our spy is keeping an equally close eye on Snape. I want to know every moment of his downward spiral. I want to know the exact moment he decides that life isn’t worth living. That is when I want him brought to me.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“I don’t want to go to bed,” Olivia complained, but she snuggled under the covers anyway, trying to hide a yawn.
“I know,” Viviane sympathized, “but you have your lessons tomorrow, and I need to get back to work in the morning. So I think we both need our sleep.” She made sure that her youngest sister had Tristan close at hand. The two of them were growing far closer now. They hadn’t had the chance before and now Viviane found that she was doing her best to be a surrogate mother.
“If I have too…” Olivia reached up for a hug, which Viviane gladly gave her.
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” Viviane blew a kiss from the door as she went back to the living room. But she changed direction after only a few steps. If no one else was down here she might as well do a little searching… What no one knew about certainly couldn’t hurt her. Besides, she was an adult, a married woman, she had every right to look for answers if no one was just going to give them to her. She carefully eased the door to the master bedroom open. The silence was rather oppressive, but it didn’t stop her from getting down to work. In a matter of minutes she was completely involved in her task.
“What are you doing in here?”
Viviane gasped at being caught, but relaxed when she saw that it was only Colin, “nothing…” She thought she had left him napping on the couch, obviously she hadn’t been quiet enough. Although she was grateful that he had taken to coming with her every time she returned to Hogwarts, which was happening at least every other day now. She was not going to leave Olivia solely in the care of Draco Malfoy and House Elves.
Colin raised an eyebrow as he looked around at the half-open drawers and the out of place stacks of papers, “you really shouldn’t be snooping in here, you do realize that, don’t you?” There weren’t enough galleons in the world to entice him to go through Severus Snape’s personal belongings. He couldn’t imagine what had possessed his wife to do so.
Viviane shrugged as she put the bedroom back to rights, “it’s not as though it’ll be noticed. At least not now…” she headed back into the living room and began to carefully go over her father’s desk, trying drawers and sifting through the open ones, “you have to understand, we know almost nothing about our parents, this may be my one chance to find out what sort of people they really are… damn… this one is locked,” she tugged at the lower left hand drawer, but it wouldn’t budge. She crouched on the floor to examine it more carefully.
Two dozen curses and charms later and it still wouldn’t open. She was starting to get frustrated.
“Why don’t you just let it be? I’d wager it’s locked for a reason,” Colin tried to dissuade her.
“Let me try just one more…” she ran her fingers down the drawer and then under the desk… and she found a small catch with her fingers, just the right amount of pressure and… the drawer opened. She smiled, “leave it to Dad to make sure no spell will open it but to have a simple manual lock… now let’s see what he has been hiding.” She reached into the drawer. It wasn’t anything exciting. A few legal documents, a few notes on some highly experimental research… she sighed, but just as she was about to give up her fingers brushed something in the very back. She pulled out a small dusty box that looked like it hadn’t seen the light of day in years.
“Now this looks interesting,” she tucked the box under her arm as she stood up, “oh, stop looking at me like that,” she scolded Colin, “I’ll put it back, I promise. I just want to see what it is.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder as she pushed the drawer shut with her foot. Honestly, the man spent far too much time worrying about things, of course she didn’t usually worry about them enough. So it was a rather nice balance in the end.
“I just hope you don’t get more than what you’re looking for,” Colin muttered. But he still joined his wife on the couch, he was a little curious after all. “Well then, what do you have?”
She opened the box with some hesitation, not quite sure what was there, but it turned out to be a number of letters bound together with some black ribbon and a few loose newspaper clippings. She picked up the first of the clippings and read from it:
‘Lucy Liddell, daughter of Mark and Sara Liddell (her father being a Muggle), was murdered last night after leaving Diagon Alley. Death Eater activity was reported in the area and it is speculated that they are responsible for her death. She is also survived by her grandfather, who defeated Grindelwald in 1945, Albus Dumbledore.’
“Odd… I wonder why Dad kept this,” she turned the clipping over in her hands, but there wasn’t anything written on it. She knew that her father had served as a spy and had at one time been a Death Eater. But she also knew that he wasn’t the sort of man to keep proof of his activities of that time. So the article and Lucy Liddell seemed very mysterious.
She next turned her attention to the letters. Some of them were in her father’s spidery writing, but the rest were all in the same foreign hand. The writing was delicate, but stilted. She finally picked one out towards the back of the bundle and carefully opened it. She could tell that the parchment was old, and it seemed brittle. Her eyes widened a bit as she started to skim through it.
“What does it say?” Colin poked her in the ribs.
Viviane started again from the top, reading aloud:
My dear Severus,
I long for your quiet company. Summers at my grandfather’s house are anything but quiet, but I am sure you could have come to that conclusion on your own. I long for a few moments by myself! I am so looking forward to August. Then I shall be able to spend my days reading and working for the committee at St. Mungo’s and you shall be well along in your research. There may be days when we hardly see each other. But I do not think I will mind. Not that I do not care for you. But we are both private people, I believe that is why we suit each other so well. I have explained to mother for the hundredth time why we are not inviting your father to the wedding, grandfather finally told her to let me be and that it was our decision. So consider the matter settled.
Yours,
Lucy
Viviane’s hands were shaking as she set the letter aside. She looked up, hoping that Colin could explain it all away, and saw that Serena had come in at some time. She hoped her sister hadn’t heard what was in that letter. She wanted to forget it.
Serena walked over to where her sister was sitting and fished around in the dusty box for a moment. She pulled out the stack of letters, “do you think Mum knows that Dad was engaged before he met her? Do you think they were ever married?”
“They didn’t get married, I found an obituary,” Viviane chewed on her thumbnail. “This isn’t what I was planning on finding.”
“What else is in the box?” Serena picked it up and cradled it in her lap.
“That’s as far as I got,” Viviane locked eyes with Colin. He was right, she shouldn’t have snooped. Now she had gotten far more information that she had wanted, far more than she had dreamed existed. She had wanted records of the last wars, mentions of honorable and heroic deeds. Not old lovers.
“Well, here’s something,” Serena pulled out a black velvet box, which when opened, presented a beautifully set emerald flanked by two diamonds. “To Lucy, from Severus,” she read the inscription on the inside of the ring. “There’s a picture too,” she pulled out the old photo, it was slightly crinkled. And it was definitely her, her name was clearly written on the back of the letter, and the date put it at the beginning of their mother’s school years at Hogwarts.
She was standing next to their father, who looked as pleasant as usual, although younger. It had obviously been a windy day when the photo was taken. The woman’s red hair kept trying to escape from its neat braid, something that seemed to aggravate her. She wasn’t that much shorter than their father, her skin was pale, although freckled. Her robes were plain and she had a serious, studious look about her. The slightly stilted tone of her letters, never flowing and vivacious, only underscored a very large and very confusing point.
This woman seemed to be their mother’s complete opposite. Morgan was short and slightly darker in her coloring, this woman was tall and pale. Morgan’s personality was bright and bubbly and overflowing with love, something that came through it all of her letters, and even simple notes. This other woman seemed serious and detached. How could their father have been planning on marrying the one, and then marry the other who was obviously so different?
“What would have happened if he had married Lucy…” Serena pondered aloud.
“Well, we certainly wouldn’t be here,” Viviane stated the obvious. But she chewed her lip. “We should really tell Kamen and Dierna about this… and Nimue,” but she added the last as an afterthought. She would have to be very careful about the way she worded that letter. She’d already heard from Remus about Nimue’s desire to leave Greece. She didn’t want to do anything that would only encourage her. She sighed, things kept getting more complicated. Would it ever end?
~~~~~~~~~
