The death dancer

THE DEATH DANCER

Chapter 11

Beta: Hannah

Harry found Snape almost attached to his hip the following couple of days. It seemed like Snape did not trust his vampire father enough to take his word that they would meet later. Apparently Snape suspected that the vampire would come and “kidnap” him earlier than said.

Today was his birthday and he felt extremely nervous about whatever that could mean. Today was the day when he would meet his father for the very first time. He still couldn’t figure out what he really felt about this meeting, but one thing he knew was that for once it actually felt rather good to have Snape anxiously pacing back and forth by his side. It was a great support for him, even through it meant he couldn’t escape to smoke every once in a while.

He had sort of grown accustomed to having Snape near him, right now he could really be himself and he talked as much as he wanted without being bothered by Snape’s presence. Perhaps that’s what Snape had wanted in the first place, he turned out to be a very funny guy but yet ever so Slytherin. He liked it here at Snape manor because he could show his Slytherin side without being treated differently, even through he had surprised Snape with it in the beginning. Even though no one had come yet to visit them in the manor he wasn’t bored. Snape had plenty of book material on vampires and dark arts in the library that had caught his interest. Snape had even agreed to teach him some spells, his magic couldn’t be detected thanks to some protective spells on the manor. He hadn’t understood half of Snape’s explanation on it, even through he said he did. He was looking forward to the school start, in the aspect of being able to try out the new spells he had been taught. Snape had promised him to help to convincing Dumbledore to let him have a re-sort. It would bring him problems, but he was ready to face them when they came. He had no problems beating the crap out of his peers if they gave him a hard time. That way he would find out if he had any real friends, or if they were all fake. Still, chances were that he would lose them all. The reason why he wanted to have a re-sort now and not earlier was because now he understood that he belonged in Slytherin and no where else. Maybe he could befriend that quiet boy Blaise, if not Draco only to annoy Snape.

“Severus?” He shouted down the hallway.

“In here!” Snape’s voice echoed out of the library. For once he wasn’t trying to follow Harry around.

He must be doing something very interesting, he thought as he walked over to Snape.

“I have a question,” he announced.

“Shoot,” Snape said without looking up from his book. Harry glanced at the cover but didn’t understand the title, it was in some other language. Harry looked at Snape because he knew Snape wasn’t really listening. He was clearly to engrossed in the book to care about what he had to say.

To test the man he said, “Sev? Is it OK with you if I take a dump in your bed?”

“Um, sure do that.”

“…” What the… he thought. “Severus! Listen when I’m talking to you!” he whined and pulled Snape’s sleeve like a child. Snape sighed and finally looked up at him. Harry closed the book and held it in is arms. Snape looked longingly at the book that was now out of his reach.

“I was in the middle of the best part!” Snape said half whining, half accusing.

“This is important! Besides, I am sure it is in your best interest to hear what I have to say as well. You are my legal guardian, so whom decides over me now? You are my guardian by law, but Charmz is my biological parent. To whom do I belong to?”

Snape frowned and worried his forehead.

“I am your rightful guardian by wizarding law, however, the vampires have their own laws. So in their eyes, Charmz, is your rightful guardian. In the wizarding society you belong to me and Charmz has nothing to say about it, especially since there is no paperwork on the fact that he is your biological father.”

“But there are potions and spells to prove it, what if that is done?”

“It doesn’t matter. He can’t get you unless I sign a paper freely to let go of all my responsibilities and leave them to Charmz which I won’t ever do.”

“What of the Dursleys?”

“In the muggle world I have no say over you, but the wizarding world doesn’t count with the Dursley’s since They’re muggles.”

“Oh… That’s weird. How do you know all this? Is it common knowledge?”

“Yes it is, at least to 99 of wizarding people, but the vampire rules aren’t that common so I decided to read up on them.”

“Isn’t it weird through? That every, so called, breed have their own laws I mean? Won’t that cause wars and chaos?” Severus shook his head.

“No it won‘t, look in the history books and read about when people lived in tribes. The tribes each had their own rules, ways, and traditions. It is the same thing now.”

“I never thought of it that way,” he confessed and leaned on the table.

“It is the same thing with religion if you think about it,” Severus said and folded his arms as he leaned back in his char.

“It is? Explain!” Harry said interested.

“There are certain things to follow in religion while there some basic things that go for every religion; such as the God, or gods if you will. The difference is in the way people go in order to please the God in question, or rather how to live a “good” life. Everyone thinks that when you die you come to a great place, the difference is how to achieve a spot in the afterlife, how to get there. There is also the matter of what the afterlife is, like Nirvana, or reincarnation, such things.”

“So what you’re saying is that the basics in the religion is that you have a God, you try to live your life as good as possible like the God wants and you will maybe end up in an afterlife which name’s different depending on the religion, and the place might look slightly different as well… but what about the religions that believes you’re re-born?” he asked.

“Hmm… let’s call them… let’s put it this way, those people have changed the ending of the cycle slightly.”

“Okay, what about those who don’t believe? Those who have no God?”

“Like wizards?” Snape asked.

“Wizards have no Gods?” Harry asked genuinely surprised.

“Of course we do but it is more common to put our faith in Merlin.”

“Oh…Okay. Go on!”

“I suppose we are talking muggles now. Let’s compare the society now days. There are laws and rules in school that you must follow or you have to go to jail or be expelled. There are people out there that don’t give a shit about those rules or laws. Those disbelievers can be called criminals in this cooperation. The criminals make their own rules and live like they want. They follow no rules. The same can be said about the disbelievers, they have chosen to follow their own path instead of following the rules set for their born religion. Back in history disbelievers were frozen out of the society and some were killed. Now days people don’t care. Everyone is free to believe in what they want even if there is still prejudgement. Some people believe in God, others in science and some in neither.”

“And your point is?” Harry asked.

“The religion is our rules. We live by rules. Society’s laws can be compared to old tribes ways of living but old tribes have been split up in two: Law and Religion, and if there was no religion there would be no rules and less wars and the tribes back in time wouldn’t have fought as much.“

“Didn’t the tribes fight about land?” Harry asked sceptically.

“Yes but why did they want the land in the first place?” Severus asked.

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Because their Gods had blessed the land that everyone wanted so they fought about it.”

“So you think there shouldn’t be any religion at all?”

“No. I think nothing about it. Yes, less religion less wars but the humanity would be at loss. Humans need to believe in something and have structure or everything falls apart. There would be wars even if there was no religion.”

Harry looked at him confused. “You are talking against yourself.”

“I know. That’s the funny thing about religion. There is so much to discuss but so little answers. At least there are no answers the way it is today. I can tell nothing of the future. That is the great thing with magic, it never changed so our belief never disappears.”

“Yes, people in the future can look back and laugh at us and our way of thinking just like we do when we look back and see people thought the earth was flat!” Harry exclaimed. Severus gave him a slight smile.

“Indeed. It is complicated I’m afraid.”

“How did we get in to this again?” Harry asked with a light laugh. Severus laughed too.

“I have no idea!” Then Severus stopped laughing. “But I am glad we did, because then I didn’t have to think about the vampire.” he added darkly.


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