A Dish Served Cold

Chapter 41 – Visions

Bill felt like someone had slammed his head into a wall repeatedly.

“So, what you are saying is that the curse served two purposes: it obfuscated your abilities from both Grindelwald and Voldemort and it also served to drive the Snapes in the direction you needed them to go, if the prophecy was to be fulfilled.” He wondered if he sounded as flabbergasted as he felt.

“I see that if I use small words you can be made to understand,” Sarit snapped out.

“You know, there were other, better ways, to accomplish your aims than pissing off everyone in the western hemisphere. You don’t have to be so damned self-righteous about it all,” Bill shouted back, completely forgetting all his previous fears of the Yidoni matriarch. “Your family decided to manipulate other people and to destroy several lives. You lot just decided that the ends justified the means without considering the consequences!”

“We were the only ones with the sight to see!” Sarit shouted back, just as furious as Bill was.

“Not bloody likely! Everyone on the planet knows what will happen if You-Know-Who gets into power; it doesn’t take some special knowledge to figure that out! If you had just bent your stiff neck and asked for some help, you’d have been given it and all of this wouldn’t have bloody well happened!” Bill was nearly screaming in rage at this point, something that he rarely ever did, but Sarit had the power to really tick him off.

“You might be right,” she replied softly and it took Bill several moments to grasp what she had said. Looking at her, really looking at her, he suddenly saw an old woman, proud and arrogant perhaps, but also desperate and afraid.

“I know you did the best that you knew how to do, but now another way must be found,” he told her with a gentleness that surprised him. He saw in her eyes the girl she had been, the happy child from the portrait and pity stirred in him. She too was a victim of her mother’s curse and had lost much because of it.

“You are a strange young man,” Sarit snorted at him, with a tone of resignation that was mixed with a dark sort of humor. He grinned back at her, wondering what her life might have been under other circumstances.

“So people keep telling me,” he retorted and for some reason they both dissolved into laughter. The rest of the Yidoni family stared at them as though they had lost their minds. Bill wasn’t entirely sure that they weren’t wrong.

Remus opened his eyes and blinked several times. There was something wrong with his eyesight. He could quite clearly see the elaborate mosaic of romping nymphs, doing things that would make a prostitute blush, that arched above him. Salazar Slytherin had been an …interesting person. The rosy cheeked, plump nymphs, with their dimpled knees, continued their cavorting with abandon and Remus averted his eyes to gaze around the room.

He had already gathered that he was somewhere in the labyrinthine chambers belonging to the Slytherin Head of House. He wondered if it had been sheer boredom that had driven old Sal to construct such elaborate chambers or if he had had an actual reason for it. It was always hard to tell with a Slytherin.

However it was as though there was something off-kilter about everything he saw and it confused him.

He turned his head and saw Ginny asleep in a large armchair beside him and was startled by her presence. It took him a long moment to understand why.

He hadn’t smelled her.

The room looked wrong because the colors were brighter than he remembered. But his sense of smell was a shadow of its former self.

The wolf in him was gone.

There was a part of him that rejoiced in the knowledge that he would never change again. The pain and misery of years was over.
And yet…

He had lost something.

He stared at the ceiling feeling about inside himself, probing at the wound in his soul. The familiar, frightening other that had been with him for so long was gone.

He was alone.

“Remus?” Ginny’s voice, filled with warmth and concern broke into his solitude and he turned his head to look at his young wife. “Are you all right?”

The firelight had turned her hair into a flaming corona and her eyes were luminous and wide. He realized suddenly that he had been blind. He could see now with truly human eyes that she was beautiful and that she adored him. He smiled at her, at his soul mate.
He would never be alone as long as she lived.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he murmured and watched as a smile spread across her face. He felt new and different, as though his life had only just begun, or perhaps as though he had died and been reborn again. Looking at his beautiful wife, he knew that whatever he had lost he was amply compensated for it with the knowledge that he could live a long, full, life with her by his side. “I’m better than all right.”

Severus slipped away from the doorway and jotted down notes on his parchment. He had been keeping an eye on Lupin’s progress. He was pleased that the other man was well - only because it meant his research and work had been a success, of course. After all, he held Remus Lupin in contempt.

Of course he did.

He hadn’t been at all concerned for him as a person.

Nope, not one bit.

Hermione bit off an exclamation from nearby and Severus’ thoughts were completely derailed. He darted around a corner and found his wife standing in the middle of the Raven suite with her hand on her belly.

“Madam?” he asked with great concern.

“Another contraction, but this one seems stronger,” she replied.

Severus frowned. Hermione wasn’t due for another two months. Now modern Wizardry could easily keep a premature baby alive and healthy, but all the medical experts agreed that it was best to keep the child in the womb as long as possible.

“I will fetch you the potion,” he answered her and moved swiftly to his lab. He had brewed an ample supply of the labor-delaying potion at Mrs. Tamarind’s insistence. He was thankful that he had.

As he strode down the hallway, his brows were drawn down in deep thought. He still hadn’t told Hermione about the vision. He kept meaning to, he really did, but every time they had a moment alone something else always came up. Either Mrs. Lupin burst in to fret over her husband, or Potter showed up to badger them or Voldemort summoned him for yet another tedious meeting.

Still, he had to find a moment to spare for this, because he had a bad feeling that his Seer gifts were going to be a definite issue in the coming battle, especially if Voldemort ever figured it all out.

Lucius grasped hold of his latest letter from Narcissa and waited. It only took a moment before the port key recognized him and activated. He mentally bid a less than fond adieu to Azkaban and allowed himself to be whirled away to his French Estates.

Reality dissolved and then reformed around him and Narcissa looked up eagerly from her book.

“Hello, darling,” she greeted him with a smile.

“My enchantress,” he replied with equal pleasure.

“All the holdings in England have been safely transferred and we are ready to depart when you are,” she informed him as she rose, graceful as a swan, from the claret-colored, velvet settee. He glanced around the room with a sigh. It would be many years before he could return to his ancestral home, but Draco, married as he was, would keep it for his return quite well.

He only wished that the boy had a little more politically savvy. Still, that Seeress had prophesied that Draco and the Bones girl’s child would be like Salazar Slytherin reborn, so Lucius had something amusing to look forward to.

“I’m always ready, my treasure,” he finally replied and his smile held many secrets.

Their departure was silent and unnoticed, but not for very long.

Draco read the letter with a feeling of bitter rage. He’d been left holding the bag and his parents were off to parts unknown to party all day and make love all night. His fist clenched around the parchment so hard it was cutting into his flesh.

“Draco!” his wife’s voice barely penetrated the red haze that hung over him. He was unaware of her grabbing his hand and forcing it open. He barely noticed her tending to his cuts. It was the stream of invective coming from her that finally penetrated.

“What the hell do they mean by that? They just waltz off and leave? Merlin forsaken bottom feeders!” she growled out and Draco realized that she was reading the letter.

“Hey!” he protested and tried to snatch it back, but she whipped it away from him.

“Stop that, we have to figure out what we are going to do now,” Susan barked at him and he froze in place staring at her.

“We?” He could hear the incredulity in his own voice as well as outrage at her high-handed treatment of him.

“I’m pregnant, you coreless wand you. I am not having this baby alone and that means keeping you from replacing your misbegotten father in Azkaban!” she shouted back at him and Draco was certain that someone have turned him to stone because he couldn’t move a muscle for a long moment.

“You’re pregnant? How?” he asked, knowing it was stupid even as he said it.

“Well, if you don’t know then I am not explaining it to you!” she snapped with fury in her brown eyes. Draco sat down hard in the nearest chair and stared at her with an expression of frozen horror.

Everything was suddenly and completely different. Theoretical children were wholly distinct from hearing the words “I’m pregnant” he realized. Looking at the plump, rather plain face that was glaring at him he knew that whatever he felt about her, however much he disliked her, she was now the mother of his child.

Nothing would ever change that.

“You’re right, we have planning to do,” he replied finally, his voice sounding far calmer and more solid than he had expected it to be. Susan blinked and it was her turn to stare in silence for a while. “My father’s estates in France are vacant, I suggest we holiday there this summer,” he continued and plans were forming behind his eyes. Not the stupid petty revenges he had planned to enact. He mentally brushed those aside as beside the point.

He had to keep his son, or daughter, away from either the Ministry or Voldemort. He had to protect this child, as he and Susan never had been. He would raise a child that would be beholden to no one.

“I think that would be lovely, Draco,” his wife replied and when their eyes met there was no love but there was a mutual purpose that was far more binding. Draco smiled at her for the first time ever. He felt genuine pity for whoever decided to cross them now.

Severus paced back and forth in front of Albus’ fireplace with an agitated stride. His grandmother sat, ramrod straight in her chair, her eyes as they followed him the only part of her in motion. Albus was sipping tea and nibbling sweets and Severus had a moment to wonder how THAT marriage had ever come about, even as he fretted about the latest news.

“However did he escape?” Sabine asked with a thoughtful tone.

“A port key disguised as a letter,” Albus replied, frowning. He sipped from his cup and popped another lemon drop into his mouth as he thought. “Apparently someone in the ministry was helping him, because correspondence is usually checked for that sort of thing.”

“Is Julian Trevesco still working for the Ministry?” Sabine asked with a suspiciously bland tone.

“Yes,” Severus snapped out, feeling a proper idiot for not having thought of that himself.

“Though Fudge’s announcement has rather shaken the Ministry, one cannot be certain it wasn’t merely an error of carelessness,” Albus pointed out. Sabine barked out a mocking laugh that Severus found uncomfortably familiar.

“Lucius Malfoy never depends on accidents, he causes them to happen,” Sabine retorted with a contemptuous wave of her hand.
“She’s right, Albus,” Severus conceded.

“About Fudge, Albus, you wouldn’t happen to know exactly what inspired him to resign, would you?” Sabine asked with an eyebrow arched and a suspicious accent on the word ‘inspired’.

“Not a clue, Sabine,” he replied, with an expression of beatific innocence. Sabine studied him with satisfaction.

“I thought so,” she murmured, and Severus was amused to see Albus looking rather discomfited by her knowing look.

He was really starting to like his grandmother.

“About the vision,” he prompted and two pairs of sharp eyes zeroed in on him. Feeling like a steak being set before two tigers, Severus tried not to shift under their scrutiny.

“Yes, I expect a report back from Bill Weasley any day now that will hopefully shed some light on all of this.” Albus took off his glasses and began to clean them vigorously. Sabine pursed her lips and glared at her husband.

“Have you been meddling again, Whitey?” she asked with irritation. Albus winced at the nickname and squirmed in his seat like a first year caught in the corridors after curfew.

“Well, I wouldn’t call it meddling…” he began.

“You never do,” Sabine scolded him. “How many times have I warned you about rushing in where angels fear to tread?”

“Apparently not often enough,” Albus shot back and the merry light was back in his eyes. It occurred to Severus that the elderly wizard rather enjoyed being scolded by his wife. He wondered how many people actually treated Albus Dumbledore as though he were just another wizard rather than as a living legend?

Apparently, not very many.

“Ahem,” he broke into the marital wrangling with reluctance.

“I think it would be best if we arranged for you to be unable to attend upon Voldemort for a while,” Sabine mused thoughtfully.

“And how exactly do you intend to pull off that miracle?” Severus asked with asperity.

“Simple, we will have it put about that the Ministry suspects you of having something to do with Lucius’ disappearance. You will be confined to the castle for a period of time while the allegation is investigated and Albus, protesting the entire time, will have to allow it.” She gave the whole speech with a small smile that made him quite nervous. Albus was looking at her with an expression of amusement.

“How very… Slytherin, Sabine,” he teased and she gave him a look of great condescension.

“Of course it is, Albus. I hope it wasn’t too complex for you.” Severus was shocked by her rudeness until he noted the look of amusement she was giving the Headmaster. Albus merely rolled his eyes and chortled.

“I think I can keep up, Sabine,” he mock grumbled.

“Well, of course, you can, Albus, or else I would never have married you.” Severus was hard pressed not to laugh at the priceless expression on his employer’s face, but he felt that it wouldn’t be prudent to show just how vastly amused he was by the whole exchange.
Albus had certainly met his match here. This was going to be much more fun than Severus had anticipated. Between Hermione and Sabine, Albus Dumbledore would never have a moment of complacency until the day he died.

Which would, in Severus’ opinion, be very good for him.