Weft of Power, Warp of Blood: A Tapestry of Desire

Chapter One
Spells and Pets

Eight Years Later

The owl appeared at the window at the same time it always did, 8:30 am, with a message tied to its leg. Small fingers untied the parchment and stroked the tawny owl\'s wing before it flew home. Whirling around, the child yelled at the top of her lungs (which was how she usually addressed her mother) \"Mama, Professor Grandpa\'s owl came!\" The resident phoenix opened one sleepy eye to watch as the child dashed across the kitchen, her curly hair flying, shoving the parchment under her mother\'s nose.

\"Arielle, I can hear you. Please stop shouting. Don\'t wave that in my face.\" They had the same conversation every morning, so the words were mild as she snatched the letter away. Jasmine slid a small finger under the red Hogwarts’ seal to pry open the daily missive from her great-grandfather. Arielle scooped up one of her many pets, Skeevers, to cuddle as she sat down to listen.

Dear Jasmine and Arielle,
As always, it was lovely to see you both yesterday for our walk. I hope Ari enjoyed her first meeting with the merfolk? They were quite interested in her after seeing the young sprite running about during the second task of the tournament. Humans are still very much a mystery to them. I do think young Harry Potter made them a bit nervous. Please remind Ari to stay away from the lake. I don\'t want her trying to get closer without me there as merfolk can be quite sensitive and the lake is very deep. Remember to reinforce the wards around the house today.

Neither pumpkin juice nor poppy pie can stop the days from going by.
A.D.

The last line of Dumbledore\'s letter made her chuckle. It was different every day and always a bit strange. Bright blue eyes twinkled with amusement as she finished reading it aloud for the child. Still smiling, she refolded the letter and stroked the cat, Berri, who was rubbing her leg. \"Did you feed the animals yet?\"

\"Yes, Mama, while you were still in bed,\" Arielle smirked. Since Jasmine prepared each animal\'s food before she went to bed every night so Arielle could set it out in the mornings, the smirk was ignored.

\"Even the flobberworms?\" Jasmine knew the answer. She sat up and Berribanterrisensen, as he was formally known, stalked off to torment Albert, the ghoul in the attic.

\"It\'s too cold.\" A slightly mutinous look crossed Ari\'s face.

\"You wanted them, you feed them. I don\'t care how cold it is. Put on your cloak and clogs and feed your worms.\"

\"But…\"

\"You can go and feed your friends or…I could give them back to Hagrid?\"

\"I\'m going, I\'m going.\" The tiny martyr stomped to the door, dressed and trudged out into the biting wind of March. Skeevers scuttled into Ari\'s room, looking for a carelessly tossed sock to eat.

\"Wait!\" The command halted the girl. Jasmine tilted her head to the side, her cheek facing Ari in a silent demand. Giggling, Ari pounced on her with a hug that threatened to break her neck, showering wet kisses upon her cheek. \"Thank you. Carry on!\"

With a sigh and a wish that she\'d been able to finish reading The Daily Prophet in peace, she stood as Arielle clattered out. Jasmine was on the short side, but an impressive collection of Muggle-made high heels compensated. Usually though, if no one was going to see her, she was barefoot or wearing wool and wood clogs to go outside in. An absent look at the calendar told her that it was the third anniversary of day that her divorce became final, and that it was Saturday. Severus would be down from Hogwarts to spend the afternoon with Arielle. Her auburn hair, not yet tied back in a ribbon, curled over her shoulder as she slumped, momentarily sad that her marriage had failed and wistful for what might have been. It was for the best; when two people weren\'t in love with each other anymore, living as roommates was ridiculous. Severus Snape, the potions teacher, lived up at the castle now and came down on weekends and occasional evenings and afternoons to see his daughter.

Sighing as she slipped into her own clogs, she checked that her wand was in its holder and draped the serviceable navy cloak around her shoulders. Not listening to Ari\'s playful witterings from the barn, she idly noted that a couple of the ribbon knots had come loose from the cloak\'s collar. She\'d take care of it before she started working on the next dress on her list of commissions.

Her mood lightened when she saw a few tiny green specks just outside the open door. The daffodils were coming up. Her pretty smile graced her lips again. Random thoughts of a new weaving pattern jumbled with the flowers and a mental map of the charm locations she was reinforcing. Oh, she also needed to cut more sage and scoop more dried lavender for the brazier that she used as a Dynamagus.

As Arielle fed lettuce to the flobberworms, Jasmine called out, \"Follow me when you\'re fnished, I\'m going to the Muggle Corner.\" Seeing the girl wave her acknowledgement, Jasmine strolled to the farthest corner of her land. The first of the protection loci was beyond the barn and tiny greenhouse and through the paddock. Wrapped tightly in the cloak enchanted for extra warmth she wondered, not for the first time, why Dumbledore instructed her to renew the protection charms around Dumbledore’s Garden weekly. Most of them never eroded but the walk did her good, so she humored him. Her breasts, hips and bottom were lush, \"a nice handful\" Severus used to say. The daily walks hadn\'t shrunk her bottom, but she certainly didn\'t want it getting any bigger. Daily sit-ups kept her waist manageable. Nothing was to be done about the rest of it, but Jasmine wasn\'t above using a Glamour Charm when she wanted to impress someone - which wasn\'t very often these days.

The cottage, called Dumbledore’s Garden, was the last along the High Road of Hogsmeade, the only non-Muggle town in all of Britain. The witches and wizards that lived at the edges of town occasionally refreshed the charms that kept it a secret from the non-magic world, as Muggles could be very persistent. Should any Muggle - or non-magic person - approach the town they would see only the deserted ruins of a farm, which appeared much too dangerous to approach. As an additional precaution, the founding wizards had added a second charm that subtly suggested to the Muggle mind that there was something urgent they should be doing…elsewhere.

Easily slipping her wand from the sheath on her side, she repeated the first charm by rote, \"Absconditerri Nonvidi Et Abi,\" She swished the wand lazily through several complex designs in the air.

She scanned the countryside beyond the simple plank fence that marked two borders of her land, studying the trees on the mountain. While Voldemort was no longer a serious threat, she had heard that one of his followers, Peter Pettigrew, was still running from authorities (who weren\'t actually looking for him). Looking for movement was a habit, but certainly not an obsession. She was sure that Pettigrew was long gone, though at Dumbledore\'s command she kept an eye out for rats missing a toe.

Arielle bounced across the paddock and meadow to meet her, occasionally distracted by a bug or tiny flower. The happy sounds of her laughter and oos of delight at a new discovery jerked Jasmine back to attention. Longing for the warmth of her fire and the design of her latest weaving, she beckoned Ari along to the next charm site, her step sprightly in the chilled morning air. The girl\'s long hair, unbound now, gleamed black in the weak sunshine, her dark eyes glinting with delight and mischief. At five years old, Arielle Snape pulled out the pretty ribbons that were used to bind her hair, usually using them as leashes for the creatures that she collected. Most of the creatures were tolerant of the leash for a time, though Jasmine knew that there were plenty of animals on the mountain and in the forbidden forest wearing pink and blue ribbons that never managed to come off.

Quickly, she pronounced the second charm required at that corner, \"Noncomparere Antiemersi\". Dumbledore required this ward to prevent anyone from Apparating near the house. A third charm, \"Circummunioarx\" was murmured to strengthen the invisible wall around the property that blocked intruders. These precautions were a leftover from the days of Voldemort (Jasmine, like Dumbledore, refused to use \"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named\") and the Death Eaters that followed him. While Voldemort had been rendered powerless by young Harry Potter thirteen years before, Dumbledore still kept the house under strict guard.

Next to the road, just beyond the stile, she murmured a charm that would alert her, Dumbledore and Snape if a trespasser approached. The Anti-Apparation charm was next. She checked the health of the Hecate\'s Hawthorn hedgerow protecting the other two borders of the land. Hand in hand, Ari and Jasmine strolled to the barn, where the same charms were done. She plugged up a rat hole in the wall with a wave of her wand while Arielle collected chicken eggs from the hayloft.

She let the ancient horse, Joe, into the yard but left the door open so he could return at will. Jasmine waved her wand and his stall was clean and smelling of hay, alfalfa and lemons. The next stall was where Florentine, a Great Horned Owl, roosted. Pellets, along with the crushed bones of the local rabbits and gnomes that kept him from eating the other members of the household, littered the floor. A wave of Jasmine\'s wand cleared those as well. He was asleep now, but would awaken with a whistle if he were needed. His sharp ears listened for trespassers even while asleep. In case of attack, his claws would do more damage than Jasmine could even conceive of doing with her wand. While Florentine usually hunted in the meadow and mountains at night, he unfortunately didn\'t have a fondness for the rats that ate huge quantities of the chickens’ feed. Jasmine thought that it was sheer perversity on the owl’s part, but since she didn’t have to provide live victims for him on a daily basis, she didn’t complain too much.