Damnation of Memory

Title: Damnation of Memory
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Suspense, romance, angst
Warnings: Character Death, Violence, Adult Situations
Summary: DH-EWE: With every generation, a Dark Wizard rises. Hermione Granger has survived one. However, after nearly thirteen years, a dead man returns to inform her that she must fight again, and this time, Harry Potter will not be the one to save the world from madness.
Author's Notes: This is my 1st full length SS/HG fic and my second 1st person POV fic. Please note that not every detail is canon, including the canon floor plan of Grimmauld Place. This chapter is also unbeta’d, so please, pardon the mistakes!




Damnation of Memory - V





For lack of a better place to go, I returned to my flat in Sheffield. I was not alone, however, and Severus was standing just at the door of my flat as he had done the day before.

It was dark in the flat and only the reflecting light of the city off the overcast sky lent any light to the room. I sighed as I drew my wand, casting spell after spell, mostly Transfigurations. Using my books, I Transfigured ‘Crime and Punishment’ into a frame for mattress. Using ‘Foucault’s Pendulum, I had a privacy screen next to the bed. Using the chair at my desk, I had a cot. Using on old, borrowed copy of ‘Mansfield Park,’ I had a candelabra. Then slipping my wand back into my holster, I moved to the lavatory, withdrawing candles from a small overhead cupboard.

“You don’t have electricity?” Severus asked, breaking the silence in the small flat.

“I used to,” I mumbled as I began lighting the candles with a wandless spell for fire.

I turned back to Severus whose face was eerie in the candlelight.

“You can use elemental magic?”

Severus seemed full of questions. I nodded and Severus’ dark eyes narrowed.

I let Severus have the bed, as he was a guest in my ‘home.’ I took my carpetbag into the small lavatory and in the dark; I bathed in cold water, missing Grimmauld Place already. We did not speak as Severus used the lavatory next, I sitting on my cot in an old oversized tee shirt that once belonged to Ron.

We had left Grimmauld Place after I insisted that Harry let his family return. It was wrong to keep the Potters out of their house for so long, and so I packed my things, and slipped Arcturus’ sleeping frame into my bottomless bag.

Severus said nothing when he followed me out of Grimmauld Place, his face hidden under the cowl of his cloak. As I sat on the cot, reading the Codex again, I wondered how he could seem so calm.

Just in the dark lavatory, a man who was presumed dead for the past decade was showering. He had not aged, in fact, he looked healthier than the last time I had seen him. He had gaps in his memory, and had been used as a type of agent for a society whose purpose was to protect a very important secret.

It was ridiculous.

When Severus emerged, I quickly averted my eyes as he was wrapped in a towel about his narrow hips, rubbing another towel into his long, lank black hair. He carried his clothing in a folded pile under one damp arm, and as he moved behind the privacy screen, I felt a flash of magic. A drying Charm, I assumed as it was not a spell for light. The candelabrum on my side of the screen cast my projected shadow upon the ceiling and wall toward the enlarged bed.

After a few moments, I heard him lay down, the whisper of sheets moving. I closed the Codex and placed it under my Transfigured pillow next to my wand. I extinguished the candles and lay down. I rolled to lay on my back as my eyes began to adjust through the dull light filtering through the curtains behind my head.

I could hear him breathing softly, but I knew he was still awake.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

I heard him shift in bed.

“Why?”

His voice was a whisper, and I inhaled deeply. I could smell soap and shampoo mixed with a unique masculine scent. It was a strange scent for my flat, but pleasant.

“This really is not the best place to stay.”

“I’ve slept worse places, Miss Granger.”

I imagined he had.

“You should call me by my first name,” I suggested.

Again, “Why?”

I pressed my lips together, trying to decide how to answer.

“Miss Granger is too formal, and you are not my professor any more.”

“You do call me Severus.”

“It is your name.”

“Astute observation,” he drawled sarcastically.

“And as a guest in my…home, I insist you call me Hermione.”

“Very well,” was his only answer and soon the flat was quiet again.

I started at the featureless ceiling for a long while, listening to Severus’ breathing. It grew deeper.

“I’m sorry about this morning,” I said finally. “I shouldn’t have been so…”

He said nothing.

“You were just being careful…”

Again, nothing. I frowned at the ceiling. His breathing was deeper still, and I knew then Severus was asleep. I tried to follow suit.



“I am hungry,” dream Severus said, staring at the golden apples hanging from the great boughs of the tree.

“I’m sorry,” I felt myself say.

Severus held my hand tightly, but moved to reach up with his free hand to pluck an apple down from the closest limb. Holding the perfect golden apple in his left hand, he studied it in the hazy light. In the distance, my mother stopped playing the lyre.

“It seems like an age since I have beheld something so perfect,” Severus whispered, his words cryptic.

Severus was transfixed by the gleam of light off the apple’s skin, and I began to feel very nervous. As he lowered the apple to his thin lips, I tugged on his hand.

“Don’t,” I whispered as he turned his onyx eyes to me. “Please, Severus, if you love me, you won’t…”

Severus turned to me, dropping the apple to the ground. He stood before me, raising my hand to his pale cheek. “I do love you,” he whispered.

He kissed me, leaning down to cup my face in his large hands. He tasted like anise, and my mother began playing the lyre again at the base of the great apple tree.



I awoke in a daze, and rose from the cot, padding quietly to the lavatory. When I had finished, I moved half asleep to the bed, stumbling, finding, oddly, that the mattress was raised off the floor. I slid my bare legs under the sheets and pulled them up around my neck, cold.

“What did you dream?”

I yawned into the pillow as my feet began to move against each other slowly, as was habit when I slept. I felt warmer soon, and my mind danced on the edge of the dream again.

“What did you dream, Hermione,” a voice whispered against the back of my head.

A warm arm slid over my waist, curling around me. I smiled, thinking that Ron was cuddling into my back, but Ron was not ever so warm, or smelled so good.

“The tree,” I mumbled into the pillow as a male body curled around me, encapsulating me in warmth.

“Which tree?” he whispered.

I hummed as his lips brushed against the back of my neck. “Apple, not yew.”

The arm about my waist moved under the sheets, a hand emerging to brush my hair from my face.

“Who was with you?”

The voice was like silk brushing over my face, my whole body, and it made me rub my thighs together.

“Mum… Severus…”

I could see the tree from where I lay on the bed on my left side. I could see my mother under the boughs, gently plucking the six stringed of the lyre. I could hear the chords and melodies wafting toward me in gentle sound waves. Severus was lying behind me, holding me, his upper body upraised to look over me, to brush the hair from my face.

“What happened in the dream?” dream Severus asked.

I laughed softly. “You were there…you know.”

His hand moved along my shoulder to my waist, resting upon my hip. I sighed as a dream breeze blew across my skin. I was comfortably warm, and content.

“Tell me,” Severus whispered, his breath hot against my exposed cheek.

“Kissed me,” I mumbled in a whisper, smelling the scent of forbidden apples on the breeze. “Told me you loved me.”

Severus seemed to hum, and I could feel his chest pressed against my back as he lay his head down on my pillow.

“Why would I do that?”

“Don’t know, don’t care…you were with me…all that mattered.”

I closed my eyes to the sight of the tree. The intoxicating closeness of Severus against my back and the warmth of his body made my dream self sleep. The tree, my mother, everything melted into a glowing dark haze of contentment.




I woke, confused, suddenly very aware, and very alert. I extracted myself from an embrace that made my face burn with a blush. I had been inside Severus Snape’s pale, lean, muscular arms. He wore only his trousers to bed, and when I opened my eyes, it was to find my forehead pressed into his collarbone, my nose pressed into an old circular scar near his heart.

The smattering of course black hair upon his chest ticked my lips, and as I tried to move, Severus resisted the touch, relinquishing his hold. We were on our sides, facing each other.

By the time I sat on the edge of the bed, wiping away the last vestiges of sleep from my eyes, I knew he was awake and staring into my back. I rose from the bed, feeling my large tee shirt fall to mid thigh. I did not turn, I did not acknowledge Severus, and I did not want him to see my fiery blush or my mortification.

I slipped around the privacy screen, grabbed my carpetbag, and walked to the lavatory. It was morning, the sun had just risen, and there was enough light in the small lavatory for me to begin retrieving my clothes out of my bag. Inside, I could hear Arcturus snoring still. I knew I would have to speak with him after I felt my blush fade.

I dressed in the clothes I had worn the day before, the tight dragon hide regalia of my Auror days. I secured my chest holster, and remembered that I had left my wand under the pillow of the Transfigured cot. I was in no hurry to leave the lavatory. Instead, I gazed into the small mirror over the sink, trying to pull all my hair up into a ponytail. Even in the near dark, I could see the flush of my cheeks and neck.

My dreams during the night came back to me, and my face seemed to burn a new terrible shade of pink. I had been talking in my sleep.

After six years of living alone, habits and routines were hard to break. No one slept in my bed but me. It had been a simple mistake, easily explained, and hopefully, easily forgotten. The dream, however, was not.





I had no food in my flat; in fact, my flat was nothing more than a shelter in which to sleep and nothing else. When I moved back into the room, Severus was dressed and using his wand to make the bed. I swallowed thickly, clutching the strap handles of my carpetbag.

“There used to be a restaurant near here, closer to the motorway,” Severus said softly, his back to me as he slipped his wand back under the darkness of his cloak.

“In Attercliffe?” I asked, not knowing of any place in my neighborhood that served anything more than ale and crisps.

“Near the stadium.”

Severus turned to me; his eyes were not upon my face, but my carpetbag.

When we left the slum, we both had Transfigured our cloaks to hooded jackets, something more fitting with Muggle fashion. Severus had Charmed his long hair red, and cast a glamour on his face so that he looked more like a Weasley relative than a Snape.

As Severus had said, there was a small restaurant across the river from stadium. The patrons were warehouse workers for the most part, but there were also some teenagers dressed in outrageous clothing, their mien indicating that they were fresh from a night in the city centre. It was seven in the morning.

We ate in silence, my carpetbag still snoring softly on the booth seat next to me. Severus finished his breakfast by sopping up some yolk with a bit of toast, lifting it to his mouth with his long fingers. I ate little, but sipped on a cup of unusually strong coffee. When he spoke, I was surprised, his voice not matching his glamoured face.

“Are you going to explain why you have Arcturus Black’s portrait in your bag?”

I set my coffee down and glanced over my shoulder. The restaurant was quiet, and the other patrons were too absorbed in their meals or cups of coffee to note our presence. All the same, I slipped my wand from its holster under my Transfigured hoodie to cast a silent Muffliato Charm.

“Black is is one of the portraits who mentioned the Knights of Walpurgis, is it not?”

I nodded, “Along with Abraxas Malfoy.”

Severus’ glamoured face pinched unpleasantly, and I wondered what his true face was expressing. He pushed his near empty plate away from him and rested his elbows on the table.

“Working on the assumption that whomever has confiscated your files at the Ministry, you stole the portrait due to its importance to ‘our’ investigation. The question is then, what are you going to do about Malfoy’s portrait?”

I glanced away, “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what I should be doing.”

“Securing possible sources of information seems to be our first priority.”

I nodded again. If someone were gathering information on the Knights of Walpurgis, surely they would be working on the same assumptions as I. This assumption followed the line that if Arcturus Black and Abraxas Malfoy had been the reason why I no longer had a job, as they had been the ones to mention the Knights of Walpurgis, didn’t these portraits have some connection to the group? Both had corrected my faulty knowledge on the society.

“I doubt that Lucius Malfoy would let you or anyone in the Manor to remove a priceless family portrait.”

Severus, I knew, was right. I had had a hard enough time convincing the Malfoy family to let me enter their home, let alone interview a previous family patriarch. Lucius Malfoy, though exonerated after the War, only cooperated with the Ministry when he had something to gain. By allowing me into the Manor, he had gained the right to reclaim some of his confiscated property. After the War, the Ministry had stripped the Malfoys of their wealth, and most of their rights. The Malfoys had been under an unofficial house arrest until four years ago.

“What do you suggest we do?” I asked Severus, honestly seeking his input. I felt as if I were scrambling in the dark.

Severus wiped his glamoured lips slowly, his odd blue eyes distant.

“In the meantime, we interview Arcturus Black’s portrait, glean what information we can. I will send an owl to Lucius.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but closed it again as Severus’ gaze leveled on me.

“If anyone were to believe I had survived, it would be Lucius, Miss-Hermione. Leave the Malfoys to me.”

I could not argue. I would never have any true rapport with the Malfoy family, even when I had interviewed Abraxas Malfoy’s portrait, I could tell that the Malfoys only tolerated my presence.

“We need to find a suitable place to stay. Your flat is too isolating, too far away from anything we may need…” Severus trailed, his eyes growing distant again. “Spinner’s End is gone, so forcing the Potters out of Grimmauld place may be our only option.”

I frowned. Ginny and Harry knew of Severus, even Arthur knew, but using Grimmauld Place to house a rouge ex-Auror, and a dead man just did not seem fair to Harry. There was nowhere else. I then remembered that Goyle had appeared in Grimmauld Place—the Knights of Walpurgis knew of Grimmauld Place, it was where Severus appeared as well.

I found Muggle money in my carpetbag, and throwing the pound notes on the table, I wandlessly cancelled the Muffliato Charm. Grimmauld Place, it had to be, and so it was when we Apparated away from Sheffield.





“I hate this, Hermione,” Ginny Potter said to me as she helped Albus and Jamie pack things into a trunk. “I know why it has to be, but still…”

I leaned against the jamb of the door into the room the boys shared. Albus and Jamie had Harry’s dark hair, but both had the Weasley freckles. I adored the boys, but as they packed, thinking that they were going to move in with ‘Nana’ and ‘Poppy’ for good, they were happy. Ginny, on the other hand, was aggravated as she rearranged clothes and toys into separate piles in the trunk instead of the haphazard manner in which the boys threw their belongings inside.

“I’m sorry, Ginny. I don’t want this either, but you and the boys will be safer at the Burrow.”

“Safer? What’s the danger?” Ginny huffed, a hand running over her belly.

I sighed. “It is the possibility of danger that has us worried.”

Ginny snorted. “You don’t even really know what is going on, Hermione, admit it! Severus Snape suddenly shows up and every one is automatically moving like we are at war!”

I noticed that Albus’ eyes widened at the sound of his mother speaking his middle name. I stiffened. The children knew very well who Severus Snape had been, like a fairy tale character. I was more concerned that in Ginny’s agitation she would say more that could endanger the children. Ginny seemed to realize her slip, her eyes flashing to the boys who had paused in their packing. The boys were small, but they knew enough about the War from their uncle Bill’s stories.

Ginny snapped at the boys to hurry, and then moved across the room to grasp my arm, pulling me outside, shutting and silencing the door behind her.

“Has anyone been killed? Has anyone been hurt?” Ginny asked in a hissed whisper in the dark of the corridor.

“Not that I know of…” I started in a grumble.

“Then why? Why is Harry running around collecting information for you? And why are you protecting Snape?”

I could not answer.

“You know what, never mind…” Ginny growled.

I sighed again. I wanted to console Ginny, tell her everything was just a precaution, but for what exactly, I could not say.

“I’m taking the boys to the Burrow,” Ginny stated, and I could tell she was trying to calm herself. By the way she rubbed her swollen belly, I figured that little Lily-yet-to-be-born, was kicking Ginny in the diaphragm.

To my surprise, Ginny embraced me, and I could feel Lily kicking against her belly. The sensation was odd to me, and heartbreaking. My child had kicked often even at four months.

“Just be safe, Hermione,” Ginny whispered in my ear, and whirled away opening the bedroom door and asking the boys not to jump on top the trunk to make it shut.

I moved away and down the dark stairs. I felt so weary, so lost. However, as I entered the kitchen, everything came back into clarity. Severus was on his feet, next to Harry, his glamour dispelled. He was slipping his wand into his belt holster and then whirled his cloak onto his shoulders. By the expression on their faces, I knew something was wrong.

As I stepped further into the kitchen, Harry turned to me. He was in his dark red Auror’s robes, and from the soot on his shoulders, I knew he had just stepped out of the Floo.

“Malfoy Manor has been attacked,” Harry said softly.

My eyes moved to Severus who was moving to the fireplace, grabbing a pot of Floo Powder in his hand.

“Has been or is being?” I asked, rushing to Severus’ side.

“Is,” Severus growled.

Harry moved to stop me from grabbing Floo Powder, ready to move behind Severus. However, when he grasped my shoulder, Severus’ wand was pointed at Harry’s face.

“The Ministry cannot interfere yet,” Severus said flatly and Harry’s hand moved from my shoulder. “Come along, Miss Granger,” he snarled.

I glanced back to Harry whose eyes were narrowed. He nodded to me as Severus announced his destination: Malfoy Manor. I wondered if I would have some sense of understanding when I would Floo to Wiltshire.





A Stunner whizzed by my head as I stepped out of an ornate marble fireplace, and I instinctually rolled. I could hear shouting, but who and from where was a mystery as the foyer of Malfoy Manor was filled with smoke.

The light from Curses flew all around me and as I rose to my feet, Severus was just beside me. I could barely see his face for the acrid white smoke, but I knew that he was aware of how close I was to his left elbow.

“Stay close,” he snarled, and then cast what looked like a Stunner into the smoke.

I narrowed my eyes and tried not to breathe too deeply. I saw movement in the smoke, and I too, cast a Stunner. The sound of a body falling hard upon the stone floor made my blood buzz. It had been too long since I had been in a fight.

“Go left,” Severus whispered, his voice almost lost under the hum of magic.

I nodded, and moved.

Crouching, I moved to the body I had dropped to the floor. Twisting my wand, the air cleared as I knelt next to the black clad figure.

It was one of the men who had cleared out my office, the man whose collar I held and demanded answers. He was unconscious, but by the cuts and blood, I could tell that he had been fighting a while before Severus and I had arrived. I searched his robes, finding nothing. There was no warrants, no identification, nothing that would tell me why someone from the Department of Intelligence should be fighting in the foyer of Malfoy Manor.

The fast staccato of footsteps on the marble alerted me that someone was running wildly through the smoke to my location. The smoke cleared enough for me to see another black-cloaked man, another face with dull eyes I vaguely remembered swiping the papers off the top of my desk into a box.

I rolled away from the body, my back pressed into the foyer wall. The dull-eyed man did not seem to see me, but saw his comrade on the floor. I watched as he knelt by the unconscious man, and drawing out a beat up pocket watch, press it into the lax hand.

Portkey.

Within ten seconds, both men were gone, and the shouting stopped. The bright flashes of Curses also stopped, and I knew that whomever was attacking the Manor had Portkeyed away.

I stood slowly, and took a breath, coughing involuntarily. Whatever was burning was spewing more and more white, eye-watering smoke through the large foyer. I covered my mouth with one hand and began incanting silently. The smoke dissipated and soon I found that I was near the front doors of the Manor. The smoke’s origin came from an aerosol can in the middle of the hall. It was not tear gas, but it was nearly as unpleasant. With another incantation, I Vanished the can and almost immediately the room was clearer.

Near to where the can had been placed, was a crumpled figure in black robes. It was to this figure that I moved to first. I knew, however, as I approached, the man was dead. He lay face down in a pool of blood, grisly chunks of brain matter contrasting the dark blood with pinkish grey flesh. I nudged his body with the toe of my boot, and then kneeling, flipped the body over. I recognized the man as the one who had passed me the notice of the dissolution of my office even though part of his forehead was missing. Someone’s Blasting Hex was too close, I supposed.

“Hermione, over here,” I heard a voice say, and I rose, turning to the terminus of the great staircase.

Severus was kneeling on the stairs next to a figure I had not seen since the Battle of Hogwarts.

Lucius Malfoy had not aged well. His long blond hair was thin and lank. Dark rings marred the once pale perfection of his face, making his icy blue eyes seem preternatural and strange. His skin was ashen, and dry, as if made of paper.

As I approached, I could see that Lucius was bleeding from somewhere along his midriff. The dark green smoking jacket he wore was black with blood. Severus was fighting Lucius to let him examine the wound, but Lucius seemed to be in shock.

“Help me,” Severus snarled, not bothering to look at me.

Lucius lay back against the carpeted stairs, his eyes unfocussed. Severus held Lucius’ hands while I untied the belt of the jacket, peeling back the satiny fabric. Underneath, Lucius wore a thin white shirt, and from the way his ribs stuck out from his bloody flesh and shirt, I could tell that he had been hit with a Crushing Curse. He was breathing shallowly, and the smaller wounds were superficial.

I knelt next to Lucius, avoiding his dropped wand, and began moving my lips to incant healing spells—basic pain reducing Charms, bone mending Charms, everything I had learned to use as an Auror. I was no Healer, but I did the best I could. He would need potions to heal everything properly. All I knew was basic combat Healing.

Soon, the ribs were inside the muscle and skin, and the wound began to close.

“He needs a Healer, potions, at least,” I muttered as my last spell began to heal the last of the bruising about his ribs on his right side.

“Tamlin!” Severus called, and I blinked, surprised.

A pop on the step above Lucius’ head signified the arrival of a frightened elf whose left ear was bleeding greenish blood. I wondered then if there were any other casualties in the house.

“Bring a blood replenishing draught…” Severus started, but another voice stopped him.

“No, let me die…”

It was Lucius who spoke, his voice broken. He was gazing at Severus through misty eyes. I had hoped the pain of the healing Charms would have rendered the Death Eater unconscious.

Lucius grasped Severus’ hand and Severus began to recoil, startled.

“You are not going to die, you old inbred fool!” Severus snarled.

Lucius laughed, but ended with coughing, bloody phlegm coating his colourless lips. He needed more than a blood replenishing draught, in my opinion.

Severus ignored Lucius and ordered the elf bring more potions. Soon the elf was gone and Lucius had stopped coughing.

“I thought I was really insane when the owl came with your message,” Lucius wheezed.

The elf returned and Severus took six phials to pour them down Lucius’ throat. The first knocked Lucius out cold, a blessing, I thought.

“Go, Hermione, see to the portrait,” Severus muttered as he held Lucius’ mouth open to pour more potion down the pale man’s gullet.

I hesitated, “How did you know?”

It was a vague question, but Severus seemed to smirk. “After the message, I place a Floo call…”

I nodded, and rose. I could see the order of events. Severus sent a message to which there was perhaps a doubtful reply. Severus had made the call from Grimmauld Place, and saw the fight, or heard it. I would have to get details later.

“Where is his family?” I asked, turning from half way up the stairs.

Severus shook his head, not knowing. I groaned softly, glancing to the body in the foyer. The ‘men in black’ had come to Malfoy Manor, uninvited. Had Lucius resisted?

My feet were moving, running up the staircase to the third floor. Down a corridor to the end, I knew I had to find the door to the attic staircase. Along the way, there did not seem to be anything out of the ordinary in the pristine and lifeless house. There was no sign of a fight, no bodies.

I pounded up the wooden stairs and flew into the attic gallery. The sound of protest filled my ears in the near darkness of the gallery. I had roused the portraits from an afternoon nap. I ignored the insults and jeers as I strode along the long gallery until I stood before Abraxas Malfoy’s confused face. It seemed he had not been napping, but listening.

“The Knights have sent their warning, Lord Malfoy, I have to take you now,” I breathed, somewhat winded.

“Arcturus’ portrait?” Abraxas Malfoy growled, his pale painted eyes seeming to flash from its frame.

“Safe. I’m going to have to shrink your portrait…”

I hated to shrink portraits, but Abraxas Malfoys’ frame was four feet high and three feet across and far too unwieldy. Abraxas Malfoy opened his mouth to speak, but already I had my wand out.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered as I cast the spell until the portrait was small enough to slip into the pocket in my traveling cloak. Pulling the miniature portrait from the wall, I carried it carefully in my hand.

Again, I ignored the heated insults, and made my way down again, relieved. The ‘men in black’ had not been able to move beyond the foyer.

When I came down the stairs, Severus was levitating Lucius’ body through a door off the foyer. I followed, finding it to be a study. The room on the opposite side of the foyer had been where Bellatrix had Cursed me. I shivered at the memory as I watched Severus place Lucius upon a leather couch near the fire.

“Tamlin tells me that Narcissa and Draco have gone to Italy for the rest of the season, a fortunate thing,” Severus muttered, moving to the sideboard. I heard the clink of a brandy decanter as I closed the door behind me. “He’ll be fine when he wakes.”

I nodded, my eyes fixed upon the bloody and pale man whose face seemed younger as he slept. When I had come to the Manor before, it had been Narcissa I had seen and spoken to, Draco and Lucius somewhere in the house, not willing to speak to me.

“The portrait?”

Severus had a glass of brandy in his hand when he turned to me.

I had slipped Abraxas Malfoy into my pocket before reaching the foyer, and as way of answer, patted my breast where the portrait rested in the pocket of my cloak.

“No need to mention it to Lucius, he hated his father,” Severus said with a sigh, raising the glass to his lips and sipping slowly.

“We should wake him.”

Severus blinked as he finished drinking. “The Ministry will be here soon,” he said, his voice softer.

“Then we need to go.”

“I agree.”

“We still should wake him,” I said again, a bit more insistent.

Severus narrowed his eyes. “It would be interesting to know why men were trying to kill Lucius, but we do not have the time.”

I ground my teeth. “We will make time, Severus.”

His eyes sparkled for an instant, and then moved to Lucius. Placing his glass on the sideboard, he drew his wand and stalked to Lucius’ form. I edged closer to the couch and watched as Severus incanted aloud, ‘Rennervate.’

Lucius’ eyelids flickered before opening.

“Severus?”

Severus nodded, standing over Lucius like a vision of black death.

“Am I dead?”

Severus grimaced. “We do not have time for this, Lucius. Who attacked you?”

Lucius swallowed dryly. “You promise to explain yourself?”

Severus nodded. “Tell me.”

Lucius’ eyes rolled, but he did not see me from where I stood near the door. “I got your message, though I think I was dreaming that part. I was walking down to the study, and the Floo activated.”

Lucius paused, his eyes becoming keener as he studied Severus. I could see that Lucius was as confused as I had been on first seeing a resurrected Severus Snape.

“Ten men stepped out, uninvited. They all had on black robes, and one spoke. They claimed to be from the Department of Intelligence. I asked why they were there, and they said they came to confiscate sensitive material…

The Ministry has taken everything, Severus,” Lucius said in a type of childish whinge. “They took all my books except Draco’s Muggle books…”

I had not noticed when I had entered the study, but the shelves were almost bare, in place of the books, however, were stacks of newspapers, copies and copies of the Daily Prophet.

“They took all my nice clothes, the furniture. They even took some of the elves, all to repay the blood traitors after the War…”

Severus sighed, and flashed a dark glance at me. I stiffened. I had not known how much the Ministry had taken, during my Auror days; I had little to do with the Malfoy family. When I had come to interview the portraits, I was only shown the foyer, a small third floor lavatory, and the attic gallery.

“I told them I wanted to see the paperwork. They said that as a matter of ‘homeland’ security, they did not need paperwork or warrants to seize property of a ‘sensitive nature.’”

Lucius’ voice turned mocking, but I could not fault him his feelings.

“I resisted, and then it started. Someone dropped a canister and smoke filled the foyer. I managed to hit one of them before I could not see any more. I moved off the staircase, fighting, but then something hit me…and you were there…” Lucius trailed, his voice softening.

From my vantage point, I could see tears in Lucius Malfoy’s dark ringed eyes.

I cleared my throat as Lucius and Severus gazed at each other. At any moment, Harry and the Aurors would arrive. We had made enough time to know Lucius Malfoy’s retelling of events. Again, I cleared my throat and Severus looked away from Lucius.

“I promise, old friend, that I will explain myself. In the meantime, I have to go. The Ministry’s Aurors will be here. Do not tell them that you saw me.”

Lucius nodded. “A promise.”

“Tell them what you told me. Without any proper documentation, the Ministry had no right to enter the Manor.”

Severus glanced to me and I nodded. It was true, unless the ‘men in black’ had had a warrant or notice; they had no right to enter the Manor uninvited. I knew the laws. Internal affairs were different, but for Lucius Malfoy, he was well within his right to defend himself.

“Tell them that the elves helped you,” Severus continued. “I promise to be in contact soon.”

Lucius nodded, closing his eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks.

I moved before Severus, opening the study door. Severus was soon pushing me to one of the fireplaces in the foyer. I urged Severus to Floo to Grimmauld Place first. Just as I stepped in, announcing my intended destination, the Floo across the foyer activated. I was gone before Harry Potter stepped fully out into Malfoy Manor.


TBC...