Fire & Ice: War Games

‘Family isn’t about whose blood you have. It’s about who you care about.’

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park, Ike’s Wee Wee, 1998


Warm strays of morning sunlight illuminated the estate’s sitting room as the house elf disappeared, leaving Lucius Malfoy alone with his cup of steaming tea as he waited for his friend. Knowing the younger Slytherin as well as he did, Lucius wouldn’t be surprised if the boy was locked up inside the breathtaking library that rivaled no other and found on the estate’s to floor, or hidden away in his potions laboratory in the lowest levels of the estate’s dungeons.

While the Malfoy family was notorious for both their wealth and the influence they were capable of welding, the wizarding world was oblivious to the other set of puppet masters pulling strings. His father had early in Lucius’ life accidently revealed the truth. While the Malfoy family was open and nearly honest on the wizarding world’s stage, the Snapes’ preferred pulling strings behind closed doors late at night.

With Julius and Zola Snape dead, Lucius’ ambitious nature knew no bounds. Knowing the Snape boy was fully aware of his own family’s influences, Lucius knew he had to be careful when dealing with the boy. If the Slytherin ever got a sniff of Lucius’ anterior motives, the older Slytherin could only hoor aor a quick and painless death. But for the sake of honesty, Lucius hoped the younger boy never found out. Not only for the sake of his own life, but also for the friendship that had formed between the pair since Severus had first arrived at Hogwarts and was sorted into the Serpent House.

Before his arrival at the wizarding school, Lucius had only known the boy through passing conversations between his father and Julius Snape. Whatever the blond Slytherin had been expecting, Severus was not it. The small, skinny boy with soul piercing onyx eyes was not what he had been expecting. Neither was the cold, calculating looks the boy had given his new house mates he gave them well into the school year.

Lucius remembered the quiet, studious boy devoting the same amount of vigorous energy to his studies as he did to watching the people around him. Although the pair had grown close over the short years and Lucius liked to think that he knew the Slytherin boy better then anyone, yet he even he knew that there was many layers of the boy he didn’t and would never know.

The twin chestnut doors at the opposite end of the sitting room opened as the raven haired Slytherin walked in, Lucius stood and greeted his friend with a handshake before sitting back down again. “How’s Narcissa?” Severus asked sitting down opposite the older Slytherin.

“Pregnant. Very pregnant.” Lucius chuckled at the image of his wife moping around the manor. “So much so that I find if I don’t get out often enough and for long periods of time, I’m bound to wind up in St. Mungo’s before the child is born.”

Severus shook his head amused by the other man’s situation, “you have my deepest sympathies. I would never wish to be in your shoes, Lucius.”

“Thank you, some how I knew that I could count on your support.” Lucius snorted as the raven haired Slytherin smirked at him.

“Tell me honestly, Although that virtue is a difficult task for you.”

“Severus, you wound me!” Lucius said, a hand over his heart as he appeared surprised.

Rolling his eyes, “I know you. Do tell though, what is your real reason for you paying me a visit?”

“Swear by the Code you won’t hex the messenger.”

Curiosity getting the best of him again, Severus quirked an eyebrow. After all, one rarely brought the Code into conversation, nor asked another to swear by it. “Swear.”

Being a Slytherin, the blond knew how to play the game; ‘I scratch your back and you scratch mine, but keep your eyes open for the knife that’ll stab you when you’re not looking.’ Seemingly satisfied by the younger Slytherin’s oath, Lucius dropped the card he was holding on the table. “Word through the ranks is.....”




After bidding the golden tongued Slytherin goodbye, Severus retreated to the solitude of his precious potions laboratory. As he took an inventory of his potions ingredients, Severus’ mind replayed their conversation over and over again. The blond Slytherin had not told him anything new, Severus had kept that snippet of information to himself. After all a debt was a debt in the eyes of those sorted into the Serpent’s lair. He had to admit though that the older Slytherin had confirmed what he had suspected.

Like any other Slytherin, Severus knew the importance of family. Family was one’s greatest strength and asset, it was also the greatest weakness and deadweight. The illusions of a family could make or break it’s members. Discarding the conversation for the moment, Severus finished scribbling his list and hurried back upstairs.

Taking a pinch of floo powder, “Diagon Alley.” A puff of smoke consumed him as the powder hit the ground.



A/N

Please remember to Read & Review, author thanks you.

Any ideas as to why the Snapes’ were/are so powerful? (Give you a hint, has to do with lineage.)

I haven’t yet decided exactly what type of ‘house’ Snape lives in as of yet, obviously something big like a manor or a castle. Hopefully we’ll find out sooner or later. Sorry for the late update, life kinda got in the way and the muse for the story decided to bother me, thus preventing me from typing this chapter up sooner.