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Sevenus Snape x Regulus Black-- 7 Spells Cycle	By : bitterfig Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male Views: 1324 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Author: Bitterfig

Title: The White Birds
Characters: Severus Snape/Regulus Black, Nymphadora Tonks

Summary: An eleven year old Tonks with green hair. A seven year old Tonks with lilac hair. White birds, a wedding and a very dangerous �what might have been?�

Beta Reader: Nzomniac

Word Count: 2230

Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mature themes, a bit of slash

Author's Notes: Written for the Live Journal community 7 Spells using prompt Set 6:1 The White Birds.

The White Birds

            Honestly, he saw little difference between returning to Hogwarts and being sent to Azkaban. �If your activities with the Death Eaters are brought to light, Severus, you�ll be sentenced to the Dementor�s kiss,� Dumbledore had told him. �They�ll take your soul.�

            �What soul?� Snape asked. He was twenty-two years old. He had outlived his lover, his lord, and his usefulness. He was a murderer, a traitor, a spy and a liar. The Dementors would be too kind. He took the teaching job.

            Voldemort, whose name quickly became taboo, disappeared on Halloween. No longer needing the protection only Hogwarts could offer, Horace Slughorn had tendered his resignation as soon as it was certain the Dark Lord was gone. Snape began teaching Potions in January of 1982, immediately after the holiday.

            To his surprise, he proved to be a decent teacher. He was not popular, certainly not beloved, but his students learned how to make potions competently. As far as he could see, that was the point.

Also, he watched over his students with a grim resolve. The Death Eaters reign of terror and the arrests and trials that followed Voldermort�s demise had bruised almost every child in the house of Slytherin. What little purpose there was in Snape�s life came from his efforts to shield them from further damage. They were what he had been a decade before, battered and despised. Even though he knew better, he still imagined that if someone had been there to protect him, it would have made a difference.

            He taught. He safeguarded his charges. A year passed. Two years. He did not think of what he was or remember who he had been. He did not mourn what he had lost or long for what he needed to go on. He simply went on.

            �I remember you,� the little girl said coming boldly up to the faculty table on the first day of his third full year as a teacher. She was a first-year student, eleven or twelve years old. A plump, little creature with extraordinary hair--a lime green pageboy with streaks of white framing her face--not someone he would forget. Besides, he didn�t know any children other than those who had been his students.

            �You�re mistaken,� he said coldly. Then Dumbledore announced it was time for the sorting and she ran back to take her place among the students. As the sorting commenced, he learned that her name was Nymphadora Tonks.

The girl had been right after all, she did remember Snape. They had met once, over four years before, when she was seven and he was a Death Eater. She was sorted into Slytherin. Her mother was, after all, a Black and she had a glint of ambition about her. He suspected whatever Nymphadora Tonks went after, she would have in the end or die trying.

Still, he saw in the next few weeks that it would not be easy for the girl. Slytherin had never been the most receptive place for half-blood and Muggle-born wizards. As a student and now as a Head of House and teacher, Snape said as little as possible about his own mixed parentage. Tonks, however, lacked that option. Andromeda Black�s marriage to Ted Tonks--who was not even Muggle-born but a full-fledged, powerless Muggle--had been a popular scandal over a decade before and remained common knowledge. Snape would often hear the other Slytherins taunting the girl. �Say, Nympho, what�s it like having a dirty Mudblood for a dad?�

In many ways, Nymphadora Tonks had the worst of both worlds. Students that might have been more sympathetic to her mixed blood could not help knowing of her infamous relatives. Her aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange, and her second cousin, Sirius Black, were both incarcerated in Azkaban for particularly heinous crimes. The wounds of the war were still painfully fresh in the minds of Hogwarts� students and their families. Snape heard Miss Tonks called a Death Eater as often as a blood traitor.

Her unhappiness, her loneliness was plain. Her hair faded to a dull brown, the boldness he had seen that first day faded away. She did not appear at meals, growing thin and pale as a little shadow. He could scarcely look at her, she reminded him so much of himself as a child. When he caught two third-year Slytherin boys tormenting Tonks, he told them to be quiet in the corridors and gave them detention.

�I also had a Muggle father,� he told her when they had fled.

�Really?� she said, her downcast eyes suddenly attentive, as they had been that first day when she approached him.

It was wrong to take a student into confidence like that. He felt he had crossed a line, made himself vulnerable, but memory had always been his greatest weakness, his inability to separate himself from the painful memories of the past.

She approached him after Potions class several days later. �I do remember you,� she said. �I was very little then, but I�m quite sure it was you.�

�It was,� he admitted.

�There was a wedding,� she said. �Mum�s cousin was best man, the one who�s in prison now.   I saw you afterwards, outside.�

�Yes, that was me.� He had already crossed a line, opened himself too far to her so it made little difference now.

**************************

It had been an accident, a coincidence that they were in the proximity of the wedding. They were, after all, in Muggle London, far from Diagon Alley. It was special, to be out together during the day. It wasn�t something they could do often. Death Eaters worked by night, under cover of darkness. He remembered he was wearing a suit despite the summer heat. He always wore a suit, the most formal and concealing of acceptable Muggle garments. He still felt underdressed. Regulus didn�t share Snape�s unease with the casualness of Muggle apparel. He was wearing a tattered black t-shirt, dark jeans balanced precariously over the bones of his hips. He was taking too many drugs, losing weight quickly as the Dark Lord�s demands became more and more difficult for him to fulfill. He was growing as thin and pale as Snape seemed to be by design but still beautiful. If anything more beautiful for his fragility, the dark circles around his eyes making them a deeper purple.

Regulus was trying to kiss him, which was completely inappropriate on the street. Snape had said so and Regulus pulled him into a shabby, overgrown park, some sort of an old estate. Regulus had dragged him, laughing, deep into the place, through the ragged shrubs and trees, finally pulling him to the ground. There, under cover of the weeds and wildflowers, they�d lain wrapped up in each other, kissing. It was sexy, yes it was sexy but mostly it was warm. The heat of the sun, the weight of Regulus� body on his, the smell from the grasses surrounding them like baking bread.

Then abruptly he felt his lover roll off him.

�Hello, little girl,� he heard Regulus say. �You must be a little witch.� Snape�s eyes snapped open. A little girl perhaps seven years old was standing over them. She was wearing a ridiculously lacy white dress and a pair of tights, which she had already managed to unravel one leg of. Her skin, a distinctive shade of pale green and her hair was lilac purple. Despite the interruption, Regulus was clearly delighted. �Look at her beautiful hair, Severus.�

�She�s underage,� Snape said automatically. �She shouldn�t be messing about with magic.�

�She�s a Metamorphmagi, it comes naturally to them. You�re absolutely gorgeous, sweetheart,� he said to the child. �Did you pick these colors yourself?�

She nodded, extremely pleased with herself.

�Are you two going to get married next?� she asked.

�No, we�re not, sweetheart,� Regulus said, glancing at her dress. �Is that why you�re here? Is someone getting married?�

�They�ve gotten married,� she said with exasperation. �They�re all done with that bit but they have to come out of the church. We�ve been waiting for ever so long for them to come out of the church. I got tired of waiting.�

�Well, you ought to get back, don�t you think? Your Mum will be upset to find you�ve disappeared. Can you show us to this church?�

Regulus took her hand and she led them through the tangled garden. As they went, Snape could not help thinking that if she was a witch there would be other witches wherever she was leading them; witches and wizards who might not be pleased to see them.

A small, secluded chapel outside of which a small group of people was gathered came into view through the hedges.

�Regulus,� Snape whispered. �We should look before we go barging in there.� He was paranoid only because he needed to be. Regulus dutifully stopped and peered through a hole in the hedge.

�Is that Lily Evans?� he asked indicating a thin, jittery woman with teased hair.

�It couldn�t be,� Snape said. �It looks rather like her, but even sucking a lemon, Lily could hardly look so sour.� The little girl giggled and pushed between them to look.

�They still haven�t come out,� she groaned. �I don�t intend to ever get married. Weddings are quite dull,�

�I think they�re coming out now,� Regulus told her as the chapel doors opened. Then his hand where it rested on Snape�s arm tightened sharply, almost violently.

Sirius Black had just walked out of the chapel.

�Oh no,� Regulus� voice was a strange, unearthly whimper. �He can�t be here. What�s he doing here?�

The answer came a moment later as the bridal couple appeared. It was James Potter and Lily Potter. She was Muggle-born Snape knew; they must have wanted some kind of Muggle service for the benefit of her family. There were wizards present however. As James and Lily walked down the chapel steps, wands came out and white birds filled the air. White birds for promise, for hope, for all the possibilities. It made Snape almost ill to see Potter standing there, so proud, so happy knowing those white birds were all for him while he and Regulus Black were hiding in the hedge despoiled, broken and already bereft of hope.

At that moment, it occurred to Snape that they should take the little girl. It would be wrong, but she would not suffer. They could Obliviate her memories. She would forget the mother and father she had now and they would be her parents. Metamorphmagi, she could change her features however she pleased and no one would ever find her. They would take her to another country--Japan, the United States, Egypt--somewhere far, far away. She would be their reason to leave the Death Eaters, Regulus� reason not to shoot heroin. She would be theirs, their little white bird, their very own hope.

�Run back to your Mum now, sweetheart,� Regulus whispered to the child. �My friend and I have to get away from here.�

A woman�s voice cut the air with a cry of, �Nymphadora! Get away from there, Nymphadora.�

Her mother. Like the girl, she was a witch. Her wand was at the ready and Snape knew why. The Dark Mark was clearly visible on Regulus� arm.

But Regulus� face had lit up and he stepped towards the woman.

�Andromeda,� he said. �I�m Regulus, your cousin Regulus. I haven�t seen you since you were married. Is this your little girl?�

�Get away from her, Death Eater,� the woman shrieked. Snape had met two of the three Black sisters and Andromeda seemed much like her siblings--beautiful, formidable and somewhat mad, at least when it came to the safety of her child. He had no desire to tangle with her, especially given the intentions he had been entertaining when she appeared. He grabbed Regulus and Side-Along-Apparated them away.

**************************

�There was another man with you that day,� Tonks said. �He had purple eyes. He acted as if he knew my mother. Who was he?�

�His name was Regulus Black,� Snape said. �He was your mother�s cousin.�

�I liked him; he said my hair was pretty. Why did Mum get so angry at him?�

�There was a Mark on his arm. She saw he was a Death Eater, that we were Death Eaters. She thought we were going to hurt you or try and take you away from her.�

�He was nice to me; would he have really done something like that?�

�No. Regulus wouldn�t have.�

�What about you?� she asked. He should have lied to her. It would have been the responsible thing to do as a teacher, as an adult confronted by a child. He should have lied to her but he told her the truth.

�Yes,� he said. �I would have.�

�Because you were a Death Eater?�

�Yes,� he said but this time he was lying. He would not have stolen her because he was a Death Eater. The reason he would have stolen her was the reason he had become a Death Eater. Because there was a darkness in him that snatched desperately at hope, extinguishing the very light it reached for.

After that he was wary of Nymphadora Tonks and careful not to be open with any of his students. Better to be dead inside than what he was.
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Sevenus Snape x Regulus Black-- 7 Spells Cycle