Custody Battle

A/N: Sorry it took so long for the update. Hope you enjoy!


The sun was blazing overhead, the large green leaves of The Tree of Life offering a blessed breath of shade to all those traveling the heated paths of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Emma was perched up on Severus’ shoulders, both arms wrapped around his forehead, a floppy blue sunhat on her head. Hermione walked beside them, with Jocelyn and Caterina trotting along a few steps ahead. “I see daddy!” Emma cried, pointing ahead.

Sure enough, just near the entrance queue of “It’s Tough to be a Bug” Blake stood with the boys, all three of them wearing matching orange Pluto shirts. He waved his arm. Hermione cast a furtive glance toward Severus, but found his eyes to be straight ahead, face as impassive as ever. Jocelyn took of running, Catering close behind her. “Bug’s Life! Let’s ride A Bug’s Life!” the seven-year-old shouted.

“Sure, Princess,” Blake said with a smile.

“Mummy!” Benjamin cried. “We meeted Tarzan!” He waved the autograph book about.

“And Turk!” added Eric. “And they skated!”

“They did?” she gasped with a smile and knelt to kiss each of her sons on the forehead. Her brown eyes turned up to her husband as she rose to her feet. “Morning.”

“You’re late,” he said and kissed her on the cheek. Blake gazed into her eyes for a moment and then turned a smile to Emma. “I’ll take her,” he said to Severus and nodded as the toddler crawled down from the other man’s shoulders. “Thanks.”

“Cool, we get 3D glasses!” Caterina smiled and took her father’s hand, tugging him forward.

“Indeed,” he said and followed her into the great tree. The day progressed without incident, Hermione next to Blake for every ride and show. If either of the older girls noticed anything, neither made so much as a peep. The Lion King show found the family bunched together, all smiles and wide-eyed, amazed with the dazzling birds and flashy costumes. Blake sat with Ben in his lap, Hermione beside him holding Eric. Severus was at the far end of the bench with Emma on his knee, and the girls between him and Hermione. It was truly the picturesque Kodak moment.

Dinner had gone swimmingly, the Rainforest Café just outside the park amusing the children to no end with the giant waterfall, moving animals, and constant thunderstorms every half hour. And among the eight of them, they consumed three Volcanoes, Eric and Benjamin finishing a full one by themselves.

“Bed!” Hermione said, swatting at Jocelyn’s backside. Blake entered the common room, the twins tucked in and asleep. Severus stepped out of Caterina’s room, nearly being knocked down by Jocelyn as she dove into bed. He pulled the door shut and took a seat near the television. Her eyes darted to him and then her husband. “Well, I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”

“Really? To our bed?” Blake said, moving slowly to the armchair across from Severus.

Hermione’s face flushed. “Blake I—”

“You what, Hermione? Slept in the girls’ room? Slept in Emma’s room? Or are you going to tell me the truth? Slept in his room?” Her face reddened further. “Did you honestly think I wouldn’t notice when you didn’t come back?” Severus had managed to slink up from the chair and over to the door of his bedroom but Blake rounded on him and growled. “Don’t you go sneaking off this is just as much your fault as it is hers!”

No one spoke. Each man had a fierce gaze toward the other, Hermione glancing from one to the other, chewing on her lower lip. “Blake, let’s—”

“Don’t Blake me, Hermione. This vile man—”

“That you insisted had to come on this trip!”

“Oh, yes it’s my fault for being stupid enough to trust my wife. Heaven forbid I make such a mistake!” he shouted. “I was trying to be the good guy, letting this bastard spend time with our daughter, but yet it’s all my fault. Yep! Blake is to blame here!”

“She’s his daughter, Blake!”

“She was my daughter first, damnit! Where was he when Cat was trying to scratch herself raw because she had the chicken pox?” he spat. “Where was this valiant father that you believe him to be when she needed help with her spelling exercises?”

“You’re going to wake the children.” Severus said flatly.

“Oh, yes, father of the year over here is worried about waking the children. Tell me, were you worried about waking the children last night when you were busy fucking my wife?”

“Blake!” Hermione cried.

“Yes, that’s my name, though it wasn’t the name you were screaming last night, was it?”

“Muffliato!” Hermione shouted, blasting a bubble of silence around them. Blake gaped at Hermione, slightly frightened. “If you’re going to insist on shouting I won’t have you waking the children.” She huffed.

Blake grunted and then turned his eyes to Severus. “You’re not welcome here.”

“Not to worry,” Severus sneered. “I’ll be gone before the hour’s out!”

“Stop it! Both of you!” Hermione shouted. “You can’t tell him to leave! And you can’t go!” Both men looked at, clear expressions of exasperation dawning on their faces. “Think about Caterina!” She wrapped both arms around her stomach and held herself, fighting back the angry venom to hex her husband clean out of the room. “What on earth would you expect me to tell her come the morning? That you’ve sent her father off? She’ll hate you for it. And that you’ve run off like a coward?” she practically snarled.

“How about we tell her the truth, Hermione, we can tell her that her mother is an adulterous slut who doesn’t care about her children, and that she only cares about her own selfish needs!” Blake looked as if he were about to draw another breath and launch into a verbal tirade, but Severus seemed to swoop across the room, his fist connecting hard with the other man’s jaw.

“Severus!” Hermione cried, as he pulled his hand back, rubbing his knuckles. Blake tumbled backward and crashed into the coffee table. “Oh, Blake!” she cried and ran to his side, only to be knocked completely off her feet by his swinging arms. “Oh!”

“Get out of my way,” he growled, charging full speed toward Severus, fists flailing. Rather than being the smart man that he was, the wizard seemed to have lost control and grabbed the man around the throat, hoisting him up off the ground and pinning him to the wall. “You filthy bastard! You’re a home wrecker!”

Blake managed to swing his leg forward and kick Severus right in the crotch, forcing the wizard’s grip from the other’s throat, and he tumbled backward, the wind nearly stolen from him. Hermione had managed her way to her feet, and gasped, watching him fall back, only to have her husband dive on top of him like a professional wrestler. Punches were thrown, kicks were kicked, and the men were growling and shouting. “You’re a low-life bastard who just thinks he can walk in here—”

“If you were making her happy rather than a housewife she wouldn’t be running to me every chance she—”

“She was perfectly happy until you came along!” Blake grabbed Severus by the hair and slammed his head down hard on the floor.

“Fuck!” he hissed, and punched the man across the eye while digging for his wand. “You obviously know nothing about your wife if you think that—”

“She couldn’t like you too much, you creepy corpse!” he spat. “Or else she wouldn’t have pretended you were dead all these years and kept Caterina from you!” Severus’ eyes turned murderous, his fingers gripped around his wand.

“You hateful, ridiculous muggle!” he growled and drew his wand back.

“Expelliarmus!” Hermione shouted and Severus’ wand flew from his hand into hers. “Petrificus Totalus!” and a beam of light flew from her wand, freezing Blake to his spot.

“Thank you,” Severus said, and sighed.

“Don’t. He was going to strangle you.” She said and walked over to the both of them. “This is madness!” she said and then flopped back onto the chair.

“I could obliviate him.”

“Don’t you dare.” She snapped. She knew all too well that although with a skilled wizard there was little harm to be worried about when it came to memory charms, but with muggles it was always risky and she didn’t want to take the chance. “I’ve done wrong by both of you and it’s going to tear my family apart.” She said, more for herself to hear aloud than for his benefit.

“Perhaps I should go.” He said and stood.

Hermione sighed. “I suppose you’re going to have to…I don’t think he’s going to let you stay, Caterina or not.”

Severus rose from his seat, heading for the bedroom and then turned to look back over his shoulder. “I’ll go because it’s best,” he said. “But I cannot help but wonder, would you want me to stay?”

“Please don’t ask me that.” She said, and watched as he slowly crossed back to her. “Severus, don’t—” but her lips were covered by his and she fell immediately forward into his arms. A moment later she pulled back. “What about my family?”

He frowned, and kissed the top of her head. “Hermione, that’s something that you’re…” and he let his voice trail off for a moment. “I’m not going to be able to say anything that’s helpful in this situation. I cannot just be some knight in shining…shining…”

“Whatever, you can’t be my knight in shining whatever, I know that, Severus.”

“And I can’t pick up the pieces even if I helped further the split in the vase…”

Hermione closed her eyes. “We have to think about what’s best for Caterina.”

“And your other children,” he said and then kissed her cheek. As he slowly walked away her voice called him back. “Yes?”

“Can you at least help me modify this a bit? I’d rather not Blake think I used magic against him…” she frowned sheepishly, “And it’s probably not a good idea…you’re the better wizard after all.”

“I should hope so, since you’re not a wizard at all.” He gave her a small wink, knelt beside the frozen man, rolled his eyes and then began a complex memory charm, to modify the memories of the last few moments, leaving the man to believe that he’d accused them both and that Hermione had screamed at them both, Severus a good deal more, and sent them both to bed. “You can levitate him to bed, I trust?”

She nodded.

“I’ll be gone in the morning.”

“What will I tell Cat?”

“You won’t have to tell her anything,” Jocelyn said as she appeared in the doorway of her bedroom, holding two long flesh colored strings.

“Are those—” Severus narrowed his eyes moving toward the girl at the same time Hermione did.

“Jocelyn, where did you get these?” she snatched the extendable ears up from her daughter’s hand. “Jocelyn?”

The younger girl frowned and looked at the ground. “They aren’t mine, I swear.” She said and turned her eyes up to Severus. “They belong to Cat, she got them from Uncle George, I think.” She said. “Or maybe Uncle Fred, I’m no sure…but she pulled them out as soon as she heard the shouting. But it stopped, so I thought you guys were ok…”

Severus sighed. “These can hear through Muffliato, can’t they?”

Hermione shrugged her shoulders, “I’m going to bloody assume so!” And then she too sighed, kneeling down beside Jocelyn who looked rather frightened. “I’m sorry, sweetie, mummy’s just really upset.”

“Is it because you froze daddy?”

Severus clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from snorting, watching Hermione’s face turn bright red. She wrapped both of her arms around her daughter. “Mummy and daddy are having a little bit of a fight…” she said.

“It’s because you had a sleep over in his room, isn’t it?”

“How did you—”

“Caterina told me.”

“What else did she tell you?” Severus asked, face paler than normal.

“Just that you had a sleepover with him, and that you don’t love daddy anymore.”

“That’s not true sweetie…” Hermione, held her daughter close. “Mummy loves daddy very much.”

“Caterina says you love her daddy too.” She was quiet, biting her lower lip, not daring to look at Severus. “Does daddy still love you?”

“Let’s hope so, sweetie…” Hermione smiled and kissed her daughter on the forehead, as Severus stepped around them and into the girls’ bedroom. “We need to go talk to your sister and straighten this out.”

“But that’s what I came to tell you…” Jocelyn trailed off.

“She’s gone!” Severus growled, coming back through the door.

“What?” Hermione’s eyes went wide.

“That’s what I needed to tell you. But you froze daddy so I didn’t want to interrupt you.” Jocelyn’s eyes filled with tears. “She said— she said she was running away! To a real family that— that— that would love her! I tried to tell her not to go! I told her I loved her, and she said she didn’t care and that she was running away!”

“Oh dear,” Hermione swallowed hard, turning her worry-filled eyes to Severus. “What do we do?”

He frowned. “We wake your husband, tell him what’s going on, and we go and find her.”

“But where would she have gone?”

“How should I bloody know? She’s your daughter!”

“She’s your daughter too, Severus.” Hermione snapped. “Don’t you start thinking that every time there’s a problem she’s not yours to deal with…”

“Hermione,” he balled his fists up to the side, and then sighed. “If it makes you feel any better I fully intend to rip her a new—”

She threw her hands over Jocelyn’s ears. “Severus! Not in front of our daught—” and she froze; eyes wide.

His face drained of all remaining color. “Dear Gods, Hermione you really…you really just…”

“I know! I know! I’m just upset at the moment. And you’ve been around so much lately, it’s like you’ve been around all the time…” she sighed and then shook her head. “We’ll deal with that later. Right now we need to find Caterina.”

He nodded his head, confused and perplexed by all that happened, and he knelt down beside her. “The children?”

“Will be safe if I put them back to sleep and wake up Blake and tell him to keep an eye on them.”

“I want to come.” Jocelyn said.

“Absolutely not.” Hermione said all too quickly.

“But mum—”

“Do what your told, Jocelyn,” Severus said sternly and the girl fell quiet.

“I’m sorry, but we need someone here in case she comes back…how did she even get out?”

“Window,” Severus and Jocelyn said in unison.

“So you’ll stay here and watch the window, ok, sweetie?” Hermione said to her daughter, and the girl nodded. “Great, now I want you to go back in your room, and watch that window, and don’t wake Emma up. I have to go talk to daddy, ok?”

“Ok, mummy.” The girl disappeared back into her room and shut the door.

“Come on,” she said to Severus and then levitated her unconscious husband up onto the bed. Waving her wand she had him awake within seconds. “Blake,” she said. “I need you to stay and watch the children, Caterina’s run away. Severus and I have to go look for her. Don’t argue with me on this, just do what I’m asking you to do.”

He nodded, a bit dumbly, head feeling a bit fuzzy, and he hardly recognized that Severus was even in the room. Before he could open his mouth to talk, his wife and the wizard had left the suite, not having the faintest idea of where they were heading, in hopes of finding their lost daughter.