A Dish Served Cold

A/N - Sigh, as if I didn\'t have enough WIPs to nurture. Well, besides the fact that several people begged and pleaded for me to do it, I got this vicious carniverous plot bunny from hell that was breathing down my neck something fierce. I cannot guarantee my full attention on this monster until both Terrible Temptation and E Pluribus Unum are done. Still, I have several chapters writter itr it so here you go. Don\'t say I didn\'t warn you about the carniverous bunny though, He\'s deadly! Thanks to Kate for putting up with yet more of my insanity.

Chapter 1 – Vindictive

Taliesin Snape leaned back in his chair and read the letter with a feeling of bitter satisfaction. The Ministry’s seal wriggled across the bottom of the page, a crossed broom and wand that were doing an excellent impersonation of snakes at the moment.

The room he sat in had been refuge and solace for the Snape family for a thousand years. High vaulted stone ceilings, rough walls chiseled from basalt, an open hearth with carved apple trees frozen in granite splendor. It had been an under-hill hall once, when Wizarding kind was hiding from the Muggles. Charmed portals showed the outside view and let in warmth and a soft breeze, both things had once come from hidden windows in the hillside, but the family had long since replaced those ancient shafts.

He raised his eyes to look across the room to where his youngest child sat at the ancient, carved oak desk, writing letters. Helena had her mother’s green eyes and auburn hair; she was in fact Therese’s duplicate in younger form, from her pointy chin to the wide, guileless eyes. The only thing she had inherited from her father was her stubbornness. Therese had been all gentleness and compassion; it was what had killed her in the end.

Taliesin would never forget the horror of coming home to see the Dark Mark rising above his home. That glowing skull had been Therese’s first grave marker. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so foolish as to marry a Muggleborn, not when he had known what his son was. He had never really wanted to believe though that Severus – oh God, his own son – could ever do such a thing. Obviously, he had been wrong and his own naiveté had killed his beloved wife.

Not that he had been a model father to Severus. His often-violent relationship with Kaleen, Severus’ mother, had spilled over onto the waifish child on more than one occasion; her death had been the lifting of a weight of misery off of him.

Therese had been his salvation, the one good thing in his life, before his younger children’s birth. She had been the reason for him to stand up and live again. Kaleen had destroyed that too through the instrument of their son – their son, the Death Eater. Kaleen had destroyed everything that had once been good about Taliesin and Therese had only begun to salvage him before her death.

In his hand the letter seemed to pulse. It was the perfect revenge, made all legal and tidy. The Ministry had passed a law that gave him the power to make his son suffer for decades, to make him feel the helpless misery that Taliesin had felt when he had seen that Dark Mark above his home. The ability to render his son powerless was in Taliesin’s hand.

They had thoughtfully provided a list of eligible young witches for him to choose from. There were cheerful little biographies for each of the poor girls who were being offered as brood mares for whomever would have them. It was legalized slavery, prostitution with the Ministry pandering for the pureblood population. Therese would have been appalled.

She had been his better self; without her he simply wasn’t as good a man. He looked over the list, searching for the least suitable candidate – someone smart and powerful enough to really give Severus a run, but not pretty enough to catch his eye or gentle enough to be broken by him. Someone he would hate and yet have to wed and bed regardless.

A girl with masses of unruly brown hair, brown eyes and a plain face was staring up at him near the bottom of the list. She had an incredible academic record, was rated as being a powerful witch and there was a stubborn set to her jaw that made him grin nastily. She had just turned seventeen and attended the school where Severus taught. The grin was diabolical now. The shame and stigma of marrying his student would hurt if not destroy his career. Two birds with one stone, it was perfect.

With a feeling of incredible satisfaction, he wrote in his selection on the handy form provided and signed his son’s future away to a Miss Hermione Granger. He prayed she would make his son’s life a living hell.

His Death Eater son would be married off to the very thing he most despised; hopefully his own allies would kill him for it. Taliesin, watching as the owl flew away with the papers, never once thought about the girl that he was condemning to a lifetime of misery with his son. He was too consumed by his own bitterness and hate.

Helena Snape looked up from her letter with a small frown. Father had an oddly satisfied expression on his lean aquiline face. His brown eyes were distant and the tiny smile on his thin lips disturbed her. That never boded well. She would be so glad to get back to Beauxbatons in September and far away from the misery that permeated the house.

She wished she could have gone to Hogwarts as her friends had, but her father had forbidden it. Trajan had been lucky to be able to spend the summer with his schoolmates and escape the agonizing holidays she was suffering. Helena, though, knew her father would never allow her the same freedoms that her brother had.

Trajan looked every inch a Snape: beaky nose, lank brown hair and sallow complexion. His lack of resemblance to their dead mother was what allowed him his liberty. Helena was her father’s living touchstone to the woman he had loved and lost.

She watched the owl fly out of the window in puzzlement. Father rarely got mail. He had few friends and hadn’t even professional correspondence, so who had written to him?

“Father? Who was that to?” she asked before returning to chewing idly on her quill. Her father looked over at her, his fathomless eyes filled with a gleeful expression that made her shiver.

“The Ministry. Just legal papers, my poppet, nothing to worry about.” His voice was silky smooth and velvet soft. Helena had inherited the power and range of her father’s voice, but she never used it as he did. Father was capable of cutting you to shreds with it. She found though that even as warm and sweet as he sounded now, there was such a bleak look in his eyes that it made her terribly apprehensive. Someone somewhere had earned her father’s wrath. She felt a welling of pity for whoever the poor bastard was.